The refugee situation in France has been much publicised over recent months. Sara Stanley has been volunteering to help create a warm and safe place for the children who are there, this is her report. Details of how you can help on International Book Giving Day, are at the end of her post:

Sara Stanley in Grande-Synthe, nr Dunkirk

“Grande-Synthe near Dunkirk in France is currently home to almost 3000 refugees fleeing terror, poverty and war in their home lands of Iraq and Iran. This figure includes 300 children aged from 2 months to 16.

In November 2015 a two roomed shelter was constructed to house a larger school. This school is a space where learning through play and creativity can begin to return some normality to traumatic and chaotic childhoods.

We have developed one of the rooms to become a much needed calm, safe, warm space, a

sanctuary from the mud, cold and smoke of the camp. A place for mothers, children and babies to come and share books and play quiet board games. A place where adults can come in the evenings to improve their English, people can form groups for leisure activities such as knitting, reading groups and the children can come for a film or cartoons.

Our space is evolving with continuing donations of books from all over the world.

We are privileged to have been chosen to receive books for International Book Giving Day 2016. We would very much appreciate any of the following;

• books in Farsi,Sorani Kurdish ,Persian or Arabic.
• Good quality, high quality picture books
  Wordless picture books, especially copies of Shaun Tann’s The Arrival
• Comics and magazines books for learning and improving written and spoken English.”

You can order a book for the refugee camp via the Norfolk Children’s Book Centre. This independent book store will hold the books for Sara, who will then collect, take and use them with the children at the refugee camp in Grande-Synthe near Dunkirk.

You can keep up to date with the work that is being done on the Dunkirk Kids Welfare Facebook page.

The Reading Room, Dunkirk