August Collections

After a fraught few days things have fallen into place and the recipients of this years' festivals are arranged. For the interested these should include, Boaz Trust in Manchester and GARAS in Gloucester, Refugee Action Bristol, The Harbour Project in Swindon, Refugee Support Group in Exeter, Coventry Refugee Centre, All Nations Church in Wolverhampton, Holding Human Rights and Refugees in Mind in Bristol plus various others.

2 stumbling blocks are the lack of storage and transport problems. Small projects are by nature lacking in vast amounts of space and labour. Skilled advice volunteers might not be best used by moving food around the country. That's why a priority for the autumn has to be to find folk who collect, sort and deliver as well as places who could offer storage. You don't need to know anything about asylum or destitution to help out. It would make a good small group activity for a trade union, faith group, Women's Institute, Rotary Club etc. For those who enjoy nosing into other people's shopping bags it's great fun seeing just what people bring away to eat when camping!

The volunteer side of it is straight forward and it could be a nice one off summer task. Fulfilling, fun and very time limited. Storage needs to be handy for a local project, dry and vermin free. Church halls, unused garages all work. They might seem like insignificant things but we need them for this to be less of a headache for the charities offering support.