Wayne Harrison was on a sunlounger in Malta last week when he received an SOS. Afghan refugees were arriving imminently in Manchester with little more than the shirts on their backs: could he coordinate an operation to clothe them all in their quarantine hotels?
“I spent the last three days of my holiday by the pool on the phone trying to get this sorted,” he said, surveying the warehouse in Stockport rapidly filling up with bin bags of donations on Monday.
The IT worker is a volunteer with Care4Calais, a charity set up six years ago to help asylum seekers in France hoping to reach Britain. It has now become a key player in the nationwide effort to help Afghans escaping the Taliban, with hundreds of volunteers around the country opening up their garages, spare rooms and businesses as donation drop-off points.
Some hotels housing the new arrivals have complained about well-meaning members of the public and smaller community groups dropping off unsorted bin bags on their doorsteps. Care4Calais is working with councils in Greater Manchester to sort donations into boxes of items the Afghans actually need, taking them to hotels in the region when the latest plane arrives.
On Saturday, the charity did its first hotel run, having been asked to sort out clothes for 200 people, mostly women and children, who would be quarantining there for 10 days.
The charity has been overwhelmed with donations, filling five storage units since Friday, as well as another warehouse in Failsworth, Oldham.
Linh Hoang, 23, was among the volunteers sorting through bin bags in Stockport on Monday. Her parents came to the UK as refugees from Vietnam, which made her particularly keen to help.
Some of the donations were more practical than others. She fished out a fake fur coat still with tags attached. It passed the first test to make it to “tier one” of donations in that it was clearly brand new. But was it what an Afghan would require in Manchester in August? Probably not, she decided, putting it on the “tier two” pile, which will be re-sorted later. The priority is getting the best quality, most appropriate clothes, shoes and toys to families bored in a hotel room for 10 days.
People were donating really good stuff – Hoang’s best find of the day had been a pair of Axel Arigato box-fresh designer trainers. Others had somewhat missed the brief, seeing the donation drive as a good opportunity to get rid of sequinned strappy tops and high-heeled shoes that are probably not going to be much use to an Afghan woman stuck in an airport hotel.
But Harrison stressed that they were grateful for all donations and promised none would go to waste. What they really needed, though, was good-quality shoes and coats, as well as unlocked smartphones. “We aren’t asking for the latest iPhone, but smartphones really enable people do do so many things in sorting out their lives,” he explained.
Buggies, push chairs and baby carriers are also in high demand, with many parents arriving with their babies in their arms, said the Care4Calais founder, Clare Moseley. Monetary donations are especially welcome, as buying fresh underwear and toiletries is a priority.
In south-east London, volunteers at the Lewisham Donation Hub, a voluntary project set up in response to Covid-19, have been especially busy since the Afghan crisis struck.
The centre takes donations of everything from nappies to fridges from the local community and distributes them to all-comers. And they have come from all places – not least due to the lack of similar services elsewhere in the capital.
On Monday, it was reported that a synagogue near Watford had been inundated with donations. Laurence Smith, the Lewisham centre’s founder, said he hoped more would spring up around London to meet the dire need. “Or our government could do something, but we will probably be waiting forever for that,” Smith said.
Among the principal items, the Lewisham volunteers find, are nappies. Sorting them is the job of Alice Esama-John, who began volunteering at the centre when she happened to walk past with her children about five months ago. “My son asked for a bike and they kindly gave it to him. I felt so bad that they gave us something, so I thought: ‘How can I pay them back?’”
Some of her colleagues have found a purpose working at the centre that the Conservative government’s hostile environment policies have denied them.
Mahesh Kumbaya and his family sought asylum in the UK five years ago after fleeing India, where they faced threats for entering into an intercaste marriage. He was helped by friends already in the UK but was denied the right to work, and began to suffer from depression and contemplated suicide.
“This place changed my life,” Kumbaya said. “They motivated me and helped me live normally. I learned not to give up and to be happy. They saved my life and my family … If the government give us a chance, we would like to contribute to this country.”
The centre receives donations every Sunday. While some organisations then centralise their stock before distributing it, Lewisham Donation Hub keeps its items onsite, where its volunteers sort them and then make them available to anyone who asks.
That means its volunteers have a weekly mountain of work to get through – but that their operation is both effective and efficient for those in need of it – and there are a lot of people in need of it.
“When we came here, we saw people who had more problems than us,” Kumbaya said.
