Walking Connections
Walking through the streets of a seaside town. When I was bringing up my children we didn’t have a car. As a result we were all good at walking. When I took them to an evening performance at the circus in town we had to catch a late bus back and then there was a long, straight road home from the bus stop. I remember my little girl almost falling asleep on her feet. “Let’s ‘circus’ home,” I suggested. And so we twirled, acrobatted and jumped our way home. On many occasions we got off a bus somewhere [...]
New Premises
We are now at new premises, 314 Staveley Road, Bilton Grange. Hull HU9 4DA. We are open for donation drop offs on a Saturday morning 10-12am. You can also drop off donations at The Clothes Factor (Damn Girl) Newland Ave Hull. We are in particular need of small and medium men’s clothes, joggers, t shirts, hoodies and jackets, also trainers of all sizes. Also new underwear, mobile phones, back packs and pull along cases, as well as men’s toiletries including hair clippers and shavers. We are always in need of food, oil, sugar, tea, coffee, chickpeas and other pulses, tomatoes, tuna, rice [...]
Weekly Donations
Can you spare £1.25 a week to support the work we do at HHFR? For less than the price of a cup of coffee you would be helping look after very vulnerable people in Hull as well as allowing the projects we support to plan and survive. Please consider signing up for a regular donation of £5 a month by clicking on this link: https://hullhelpforrefugees.org.uk/wp/donate/ Your money has already helped us make life in Hull for newly arrived asylum seekers more bearable. People often arrive with only the clothes they stand up in and wearing flip flops. Families housed in [...]
Some Stories from some of our Volunteers
Just a number of stories from some of our volunteers about how and why they volunteer for Hull Help for Refugees. If you would like to join us please do get in touch. I used to attend Hull Help for Refugees charity concerts and rummage sales, sing carols in the town square with them at Christmas, and since the first lockdown have participated in the fortnightly Zoom quiz (which is a lot of fun). Then I saw a call out on the message group for help sorting and distributing donated clothes and shoes to the city’s asylum seekers, and [...]
Moving day
Due to changes beyond our control, we are having to move from the Avenues Centre that has accommodated our storage and sorting for the last few years. We’ve managed to find a temporary location for our pop-up clothing distribution point to keep us going until the our location is ready. As you can imagine, moving during a pandemic is not easy but in true HHfR style, we rose to the challenge. Our team members took on different roles, sticking to their allocated rooms to move items to the car park. The drivers then packed their vehicles and drove to the [...]
Where do your donations go?
For almost five years, our primary mission was to collect donations of clothing, sleeping bags and other aid which in turn, was sent to France, Greece and the Aegean Islands to support refugees displaced in these areas. Sadly, 2020 has at times, ground our work to a halt and at best, slowed it down dramatically. No longer can our volunteers take regular van loads to Calais and aid sent further into Europe has also been less frequent. Although we always hated to see perfectly useful equipment abandoned at festivals, we loved the fact that we could collect van loads up [...]
A meeting with Clare Moseley
We are really excited that Clare Moseley is coming to speak to us! Clare founded Care4Calais in 2015. Veteran campaigner, regularly interviewed by the press and a passionate speaker, Clare has a way of getting right to the heart of the subject and helping you see what is happening and why, in a much clearer light. Clare will be updating us on the very latest not only on what is going on for the refugees in Northern France, but also for those people who have arrived here in the UK and are trying to claim asylum, who are being “accommodated” [...]
Hull Chooses Love
Something really wonderful to celebrate: Here’s what we’ve collectively achieved through the recent hygiene campaign. Nationally, over 2,000 Banana Boxes have been filled with hygiene products, and over 200 rubble sacks filled with nappies. Donations worth well in excess of £50,000! These items will soon be on their way abroad to help vulnerable people who have pretty much been left with nothing through no fault of their own. Something else to make us feel especially proud: In the Hull area we provided 1% of the total donations despite only being 0.2% of the population!!! We are officially five times more [...]
Calais Winter Appeal
As the dust settles from our fantastic contribution to the Choose Love hygiene appeal for Lesvos, we’re turning our attention to refugees spending a cold winter in Calais. We’re still collecting all clothes in good condition, however the following items are on the most needed list. Tents Sleeping bags Mats Blankets Thermal socks Snoods Beanie hats Gloves Stretchy boxer shorts (S/M) If you don’t have any of these to spare but still want to help, all donations collected this week will go towards this particular campaign. If you’d rather set up a monthly donation, please head to our donate page [...]
Ever Innovative
Suddenly finding myself in a position where I was unable to undertake any of my usual activities, including our many planned fund and awareness raising ones, what to do? An answer came in the form of one of my friend and HHfR colleague Helen who, as an accomplished sewer of many years was, I discovered was already ‘beavering away’ producing many useful items for the NHS, including face masks. After several phone and Zoom instructions from Helen, I bought a sewing machine, set myself up a workstation at home and started becoming a ‘mask maker’. Easier said than done, but [...]
AGM – speakers from Help Refugees and Collective Aid
Thursday 13th August – 18:50 for start 19:00 Our AGM this year will host speakers from Help Refugees and Collective Aid. Help Refugees is a large organisation supporting over 120 projects across Europe, as well as around the world. Collective Aid have a team of volunteers in Northern France supporting around 1,500 refugees with essential and life-saving aid. Our webinar can be accessed here from 18:50, ready for a 19:00 start
Juliet Explains All
https://www.youtube.com/embed/fpiXVESUoRw Still undecided about joining the five week challenge? We’d love you to join us! Get sponsored for doing something you enjoy and help provide desperately needed shelter for refugees in Calais. Here’s how to get involved, please message us if you have difficulty setting up and we’ll walk you through the process.
The Five Week TENTS4CALAIS Challenge
We need YOU to get sponsored in YOUR OWN challenge! Join us raising funds for tents for refugees in Calais. Here is how it works. You accumulate MILES at any point over the 5 weeks by clocking up time spent doing what you enjoy: cycling, walking, jogging, swimming, dancing, yoga, even KNITTING! Twenty minutes of one activity = 1 MILE Start by getting yourself a sponsorship page on GOLDEN GIVING choosing CARE4CALAIS as the cause. Set your goal: it can be a big impressive one or quite modest. It doesn’t matter. When you’re set up, or if you need help setting up, [...]
What’s happening in Paris and Samos
Event. Monday 6th July 7pm. Find out what’s happening to refugees in Paris and the Greek islands. Harriet a doctor from MARDI working with refugees in Paris and Freda, a teacher who has been working with refugee children on the Greek islands are talking to us via Zoom next Monday. We’ve been so pleased that we have finally managed to arrange this event. Harriet and Freda will be telling us about their experiences volunteering in Paris and Greece, bring us up to date on some of the current issues, and if you are interested tell you how to go about volunteering abroad. [...]