FOOD, WATER
AND SOLIDARITY
WITH PEOPLE
ON THE MOVE
Who we are
FOOD, WATER AND FREE MOVEMENT FOR ALL
GRASSROOTS SOLIDARITY WITH PEOPLE ON THE MOVE
FOOD, WATER AND FREE MOVEMENT FOR ALL GRASSROOTS SOLIDARITY WITH PEOPLE ON THE MOVE
Calais Food Collective is a grassroots collective supporting people on the move in Calais by advocating for food and water autonomy.
Our projects in Calais directly support displaced people, refugees, asylum seekers and migrants - who we refer to collectively as people on the move, to not distinguish people separately by their legal status. The majority of people CFC support are fleeing conflict, war, persecution, or systematic violence in their home countries.
We support communities from many different countries, such as; Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Somalia, and many more. CFC provides food, water and resources to 20-25,000 people per year.
We were founded in spring 2020 as an emergency response to the pandemic when other NGOs were forced to suspend services, to ensure people still had access to food. In the years since then we have also developed our water, waste management and advocacy projects.
Calais Food Collective is a member of Calais Appeal, a consortium of six organisations supporting people on the move at the UK-France border. We share resources, campaign and fundraise collaboratively.
What we do
Our work is mainly divided into three projects: food, water and advocacy. Read more about each of them on the linked pages below.
We plan to continue our services for as long as we are needed, while advocating for a fundamental change to the daily realities of people on the move in Calais.
In our work we also seek to support and build partnerships with the local community, for example by lending hands to farms in the area to harvest surplus food we could use, and organising community litter picks with Calais Ploubelle to deal with the build up of waste at living sites.
FOOD, WATER AND FREE MOVEMENT FOR ALL
GRASSROOTS SOLIDARITY WITH PEOPLE ON THE MOVE
FOOD, WATER AND FREE MOVEMENT FOR ALL GRASSROOTS SOLIDARITY WITH PEOPLE ON THE MOVE
Food project
The situation in Calais is volatile and constantly changing, so we aim to be flexible and support people in the way that best suits them. We operate as a mobile distribution, bringing the food directly to living sites to allow people on the move access to our service without shaping their day around it. As well as our regular distributions, we also give out emergency food packs to communities after police evictions.
Water project
We provide water for drinking, cooking and cleaning, by refilling and maintaining fourteen 1000L water containers close to the living sites. We also distribute items like soap and bin bags and support with litter picking to improve the sanitation at living sites.
Advocacy and press
We collect testimonies and data from our work in the field which contributes to projects with partners like Solidarités International, Coalition Eau, Calais Appeal and Border Violence Monitoring Network. We have a number of achievable campaigning goals, including to push for state installation of accessible water points and waste collection services at living sites.
We also work with the British and French press to make sure that the situation in Calais is well-understood and documented by journalists in the face of widespread misinformation about migration at the UK-France border.
