You will all be aware of the emerging situation in Ukraine.

As a charity we have been discussing our position and our thoughts about how to respond to this unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.

We have long term relationships with two charities that work in the region, one that works directly in Ukraine and another that works in Moldova.

Clearly there will be many people on the move.  It is hard to understand how any migrant flows will develop over the coming days and weeks, so we are for now liaising with these organisations that have local experience to plan our next steps.

An excellent independent report on Ukraine and the humanitarian position can be found on our website.

There is no specific appeal yet for this crisis so for now donations will be taken into central funds whilst we are in the planning stage.   

In other news, it has been a couple of months since the last newsletter for which I personally apologise, however we haven’t been as quiet as the communications (and something tells me it's about to get a whole lot busier).

An important project since the start of the year has been to work alongside Care4Calais (C4C) to help them with transport and logistics.

As a result of a very successful Afghanistan appeal, C4C were left with donations of clothing and other aid in various places around the country that needed in the first instance to be centralised and sorted.

As is so often the case, our volunteers stepped up and we mobilised our trucks and some hire vehicles to move these goods to 3 main locations around the country, Manchester, Barnstable and Hastings.  That work is continuing, but is close to being finished and we would like to thank everyone who has been involved in this project so far.

We are now considering our next steps in terms of how we can help C4C and in particular the Afghan refugees that they are supporting in various locations in the UK.

One thought is to set up a free mobile shop using one of our trucks that can move between locations and provide much needed aid to those who need it.

This is no small undertaking, it needs to be kept stocked and tidy as well as ensuring that the correct people can get the aid they need.  If you are interested in finding out more, or more importantly would like to help with this initiative, please get in touch.

In respect of helping refugees in the UK, one of our volunteers had roughly 70 banana boxes of knitted blankets.  These would normally be part of our aid shipments but these have now been provided to refugees in the UK instead. 

Another thank you here, firstly to all of those who knit for Hope and Aid Direct, whether that is blankets or squares, and also to a couple of our volunteers to help coordinate the knitting as well as dealing with the distribution of the finished blankets.  If you are a knitter and you would like to be involved, then please let me know and I can put you in touch with the necessary people.   

Lastly for now, but by no means least, what we do well and what we have been doing for close on 25 years has been delivering aid.  That has not stopped.

The new post-Brexit customs regulations have made getting aid into Europe a huge challenge, but after much sweat, toil, heartache, form filling and countless phone calls we finally managed to get two trucks, Robin Hood and Frantic back on the road.

In January, in conjunction with and partially financed by Herts for Refugees we managed to get this much needed aid out to Collective Aid in Calais and Mobile Refugee Support in Dunkirk, pictured below.

Robin Hood was filled half with blankets and the other half with mostly mixed clothing. Frantic stuffed to the limit with tents and sleeping bags salvaged at the Reading and Isle of Wight 2021 festivals.

There were so many people involved in making this trip possible, but particular thanks must go out to Auberge des Migrants, who officially invited us and facilitated all of the French paperwork.

We will be in touch again soon, too soon unfortunately.  Our aim as always has been to be in a position where we and organisations like us are no longer required, however for now, thank you for your ongoing support.