Calais Food Collective
We work in Calais to ensure that displaced people stuck, often for many months in Calais, are able to cook for themselves. As well as it being essential to nourish yourself, the ability to cook has great psychological and communal advantages during a mentally and physically challenging time.
Who We Are
Created as a Collective in March 2020 in Calais, we became an independent registered organisation in June 2021, still working as a collective, based in Calais.
The Calais Food Collective operates as a flat hierarchy and all members have an equal value in our decision making processes. No matter how long a volunteer stays, we invite any member to take on any role and respect each individual as vital to our team. Our assignments include: accounting, fundraising, field logistics, distributions, advocacy, recruitment.
Why We're Here
We work in Calais to ensure that displaced people have food autonomy and a community with whom to share the importance and joy of food.
We also work to ensure that there is an emergency response after large evictions in terms of food and water. Our team is small, flexible and well equipped to deliver food and water rapidly in such situations.
Our Response and Impact
Food Distributions
We distribute basic food items and cooking equipment to enable people to cook for themselves, in an attempt to restore some freedom and autonomy. We have distributed 240,550 meals since January 2021.
Water Distributions
We distribute bottled water, 5L reusable jerry cans, and provide 1,000L water tanks that we fill twice a day to allow continuous, self-sustaining access. 273,398 L of water have been distributed since January 2021.
Advocacy
The various advocacy missions are an integral part of our work and we are constantly calling on the authorities to change the inhumane living conditions on the ground and to enable displaced people to have their most basic rights respected.
What We Need
CFC relies on the donations of regular people like you to carry on our distributions. Although we receive a large amount of food from charitable partnerships, this is never enough to make distributions for 1000 people every 2 days. Then there is the costs of renting the warehouse, keeping the vans running and purchasing all the equipment for our water distributions.​
We are small, entirely volunteer run and emphasise efficiency, which means even small donations, especially regular donations, will go a long way.
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If you'd like to volunteer, please write to calaisfoodcollective@gmail.com