January 13th, 2019:

“No one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark”, ‘Home’, by British-Somali poet Warsan Shire.

In addition to Nordoff Robins and Spread a Smile, in London Harry Styles, chose the charity Help Refugees for the donation of the proceeds of the sale of his Treat People with Kindness merchandise.

Help Refugees is a UK charity, based in London, which works to help refugees all over Europe and in Lebanon. The charity sends help and volunteers where it is most needed partnering with local grassroots organizations to bring help exactly in the form in which it is needed at each location.

Help Refugees is active in Greece and Northern France, among other European regions. In Greece, this charity assists refugees by supporting the work of a Refugee Rescue team and by providing food, in particular, fresh fruits and vegetable. Refugees that escape their countries due to wars, civil wars or famine, often do so in flimsy modes of transportation. Refugees that arrive in Greece, for the most part, do so via sea and in particular via the stretch of waters between Turkey and Greece mainland. They often do so on flimsy boats or boats that are not made for being in high seas and that are overcrowded. Sometimes refugees are even left by smugglers on the coast in areas that are not accessible from the land.

To rescues refugees from the sea and from these inaccessible areas a group of volunteers founded in 2016 on the Greek island of Lesvos a Rescue Team which uses the rescue boat called ‘Mo Chara’ (Gaelic for ‘My friend’) for their rescue operations. Help Refugees has been funding their work ever since, supporting the repair of the boat, the purchasing of their GPS navigation system and the purchase of infrared goggles for night vision, among other things.

Help Refugees also distributes fresh fruits and vegetables to the refugee camps in Greece to allow better nutrition and the cooking of the food in warm homemade meals that help lift the spirit of the refugees and create a sense of community.

The refugee crises in Northern France is especially centered around Calais and Dunkirk. In these areas, there are at least 1,300 refugees sleeping in tents, 200 of which are children. In some cases, refugees do not even have a tent and sleep in the forest in a sleeping bag. Help Refugees distributes in these areas shoes, clothes, hygiene kits, blankets, and sleeping bags. In addition, the charity together with Refugee Youth Service and L’Auberge des Migrants, created a multi-agency Child Protection team to help the overwhelmed system in the region, support the lives of the many children and infants of refugees in the area.

Help Refugees is active in other areas of Europe that see a large influx of refugees. These include Croatia, Italy, Serbia, and the UK. They also operate in Lebanon which is the nation with the largest number of refugees per capita. Indeed, Lebanon has absorbed so far over 25% of the Syrian population and has seen the arrival since 2011 of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Palestine and at least 20,000 refugees from other parts of the world.

The work of Help Refugees can be supported in many ways including with monetary donations, donations of blankets, clothes, shoes, and hygiene products, fundraisers and donating your time to do volunteer work with them. To learn more about how you can help, visit their “Get Involved” link. The charity also has a line of merchandise that includes t-shirts and bags with the slogan “Choose Love” that can be purchased at this link and an online store where you can purchase items that will go directly to refugees through the many projects the charity is supporting.

Pictures are credited to Help Refugees’ and Harry Styles’ Twitter accounts.