We drive the Refugee Info Bus down the motorway, waving to some guys we know walking along the street. People shout and wave, they know we are coming. We arrive at the distribution zone, park, start unpacking the van. The generator is pulled out, revving as it gets turned on to provide essential charge for mobile phones. The Wifi mast is raised, the news articles handed out. Everything is going well, a few issues with sim cards here and there, a few questions about the UK. All in a days work. But then — someone approaches you looking particularly downtrodden. What’s up brother, are you ok? He simply hands you his phone, and it is destroyed. Smashed all over the front and back. The camera shattered. The enclosure is bent and falling apart. The man says one word.

Police.

Sadly, this is a daily occurrence in Calais. In the five major points where people live - all outside, and all in tents - clearances occur every week, sometimes more than once. When this happens, not only are refugees’ only shelter and protection from the weather taken away, but so are their personal belongings. Often, their phones are taken away, thrown on the ground, and smashed with batons by the CRS.

Ibrahim, who lives in Calais, says this:

“I see police, I run away, and my phone fell on the floor. The police see my phone and first he hits with his foot. Then he hits by stick. He tells me “degage [clear off]!” And I don’t come back. But I watch him pick up my phone and throw in the garbage. I wait 30 minutes and go get my phone. And see now? Phone not work. Phone broken.”

As volunteers for organisations such as Help Refugees, Refugee Info Bus, and Refugee Youth Service among many others in Calais, we feel responsible to aid people in these communities as much as possible. A phone is not just a phone line, it is a computer in their pocket. It is a navigator. It is a camera. It is their only connection to a world that so often pushes them to the edge of humanity. Only yesterday, a young man used our wifi to call his wife and name his 3 month old baby. We provide services such as wifi, charging, news, and information about asylum and legal rights, but so much of this is insignificant without a smart phone.

Naturally, the first idea to combat this ever increasing issue is phone distributions. Making a list of especially vulnerable people (minors, women, mentally or physically ill) and recording who needs phones first. Doing a donation drive specifically for smart phones. Fund-raising, promoting, contacting phone companies. But…

Phones are the highest commodity item that could ever be distributed. Unlike clothes, food, water, wood, they are not easily disposible and cannot be found anywhere else without access to money. It is also incredibly hard to decide who needs access to a mobile phone most. An Afghan man who has two young children back home whom he hasn’t spoken to in months? Or a young boy who has just arrived in Calais and just had his phone stolen?

Chris, a fellow volunteer for the Refugee Info Bus, says this about phone distribution: “people approach you with smashed phones and it’s their lifeline, and so much of our job in Calais is trying to fix people’s immediate needs — food, water, shelter, etc. However, we have to keep things fair and equal. Therefore, we would technically have to give people the same/similar phones, make sure we had enough for everyone, and set up a team of volunteers who’s core role is distributing phones so that it doesn’t become the core function of other integral services. We’d also have to assess the needs of individuals and set criteria for who can get a new phone and who can’t. Despite the effort involved, I feel it would be worthwhile, as you can see the effect of a new phone on someone’s wellbeing and happiness, and phones are a lifeline to family and friends elsewhere.”

With a population of approximately 700 people living in Calais, one of our overarching missions is to try and make distributions as fair and equal as possible. Five different communities of people live on the streets and we need to make sure we don’t prioritise any one community over another, as this will cause unnecessary and avoidable tensions. Avoiding any kind of tension is completely necessary to keep our projects going and to be able to continue our vital aid work. This means that we would require over 700 smart phones in order to even start doing a phone distribution. This isn’t impossible, but it’s very very unlikely that we would manage to collect so many working, unlocked, similar smart phones.

So what’s the solution? Currently the Refugee Youth Service, and Mobile Refugee Support who operate in Dunkirk, are the only organisations that distribute phones to displaced people. At the moment, RYS have zero phones to distribute, as they are completely reliant on donations. The amazing Facebook group Phone Credit for Refugees and Displaced People provide phone credit to refugees living around the world, and this is also solely based on donations. Their volunteers are dealing with many more requests than they can handle right now, and will it ever end? I am not sure whether we will ever receive enough phone donations in order to undertake a full phone distribution. In this bleak situation, we dream of the day when we can say ‘yes!’ to our friends whom we support every day when they ask us about fixing their phones, or obtaining a new one for them.

Ideally, we would have a phone technician repairing phones that get broken and then giving them back to the same people. We would have a team of people organising donation drives of unlocked, working smart phones, and then preparing them for distribution with sim cards and credit. Unfortunately, lack of funds, resources, and volunteers prevent us from being able to do this.

In the meantime, we are recording and documenting these violent and calculated abuse tactics that are being used by French authorities to target refugees. This kind of manipulative and corrupt exploitation is a daily occurrence and it is currently increasing in frequency. This is not acceptable. We will continue documenting these abuses, raising awareness and researching solutions until it ends.

Tahlia is a volunteer with Refugee Info Bus.

Where do we draw the (phone) line? was originally published in The Digital Warehouse on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

9am — Volunteers arrive van by van at the warehouse. The sun is shining but it’s cold, and we think about our friends in tents. Someone gathers everyone outside for morning briefing. We look around the circle to our colleagues, friends. All united for one goal. Thank you for being here.

10am — A clearance is going on in at another distribution point. Vans upon vans, men with batons, spray canisters, guns. Some volunteers are present at the location, filming, asking questions, trying to help the guys remove their belongings from their tents before they get destroyed by the men in uniforms. Tear gas is deployed like perfume, but the result is far different. More volunteers arrive to assist with hospital runs. Present, resilient, assertive.

11am — Michael Jackson is playing in the kitchen. Onions are everywhere. Rice is being stirred and fluffed, in 6 giant pots. Tea is being sweetened. The chefs are working on a variation of Afghan eggs. Everyone is dancing and grooving, preparing for the distributions of the day to Calais and Dunkirk.

12pm — The warehouse manager strides around the warehouse. Volunteers to the left sorting clothes, to the right preparing items for distributions. The Women’s Centre are sizing coats and jumpers. Tents being counted, and frantically thrown in the van to be given out, replacing the ones taken away. The hoppers are overflowing with large and extra large jumpers — what will we do with them all? Bags and boxes being wheeled around from one warehouse to the next, everyone hoping to avoid rats and cats. We ask for shoes, size 42, but sadly there are none.

1pm — The sun is still shining as volunteers emerge from their working locations and congregate in the volunteer area. RCK serves hot curry, rice, salad to hungry volunteers as they laugh and chat about the day. Volunteers from the School Bus Project are preparing what games and lessons they will be doing today. As everyone sits and enjoys the curry, complimenting the chefs on the rice, we discuss our strategies and ideas; for sustainability, for preventing police intervention, for logistics of the warehouse.

2pm — Two vans are in the yard, with volunteers passing items to each other to be loaded. Boxers, T-shirts, jackets, jumpers, emergency blankets & ponchos flow into the vans. Water is being pumped into barrels. Tea is being poured into urns. Everyone is rushing to leave on time. Team leaders run into the van, hurrying their team of Utopia 56 volunteers. Off they go to a distribution, one of seven a day.

They arrive and a few guys are waiting for them. “Hello, how are you sister/brother?” they say to us, shaking our hands. Some of them that we know well give us hugs. “What you bring today, food?” they ask. “No food today brother” we respond, as the government now distributes food daily for them, but not at this distribution point. We ask them to form a line and one of us jumps into the van to begin handing out items. The guys laugh and ask us “where are you from?”, “are you French?”, “Do you live in UK?”, “How is it, easy to get job?”. Some of the guys start playing music from their phones, others gather by the fire. Our hands are cold, but not compared to the guys. Gloves gloves gloves. “Gloves finish my friend, I am sorry.”

3pm — Three of us volunteers drive the Refugee Infobus down to another distribution point. We discuss a security incident that happened the day before, the procedure for evacuation if necessary. We brought instruments today, let’s get the guys involved. We arrive and immediately we are greeted by the guys helping us remove all the equipment from the van, helping to set it up. “Wifi, wifi!”

We play table tennis with the guys, joining in on the fun created by RYS. Some of the younger ones have an English lesson. We troubleshoot some phone issues, help people with credit. The ground is dusty and dirty, but this doesn’t stop a game of football starting up. The woodyard team comes to drop off the wood they have been preparing in the day, the guys run from the bus to go and gather their bags — it will be a long, cold night.

5pm — The warehouse starts winding down as the morning team finish and the evening teams begin to load their vans. The food is about to be distributed, there’s still a lot of work to be done. The team leaders check their vans — curry, rice, salad, spices, tea, water, anything else? Will the guys like the food? Will it remind them of home? A new volunteer is nervous, she doesn’t know what to expect. The long termers brief her on possible scenarios on the field, there could be hundreds of people waiting to eat.

8pm — The late shift starts, into the car again, marauding around to check for the suspicious, slow driving, big vans that hunt for refugees. We are there to protect them, if we are present the authorities are less likely to use violence, but it still happens. We go to hang out with some guys by a fire, chat to them about their days. Some of them have received new tents and blankets, but they aren’t very thick. They will be cold tonight.

9pm — Most of the volunteers return to our campsite home. We gather in each others caravans, make each other food. Beers all round. We need it. It’s always someones leaving party or birthday, who is it today? Where will we go to let off steam and try to forget what our jobs are? We drink, we laugh, we cry, all together. That’s our lives. Standing together, solid, strong, united. Because if we aren’t here, who will be?

To volunteer with Help Refugees in Calais, visit helprefugees.org/volunteer/calais

Or to volunteer with Refugee Community Kitchen, visit http://refugeecommunitykitchen.com/volunteer/. Whether you’re a chef by trade or have never chopped an onion in your life, a constant stream of enthusiastic volunteers keeps RCK running!

And check out our Volunteer FAQs!

Tahlia is a volunteer with Refugee Info Bus. We are always looking to hear from people interested in getting involved in our project. For the Info Bus, we are especially interested if you have language skills, you have a writing background, experience in repairing phones, a legal background, experience as a refugee, fundraising enthusiasm or admin enthusiasm.If you can stay for a month or more, drop us an email at calais@refugeeinfobus.com!

A Day in the Life of a Calais Warehouse Volunteer was originally published in The Digital Warehouse on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.