Since 2020, we have been providing food for people on the move in a way that strives to promote autonomy, choice, and dignity. Our method of distributing cooking ingredients and utensils directly to communities in their living spaces allows people to cook for themselves, according to their personal tastes and schedules. The ability to cook together and enjoy a meal as a group can also provide community benefits, which is especially important for communities observing the holy month of Ramadan.

A concerning downturn in funding has forced CFC to reduce our food distributions and limit the variety of items we are able to provide. Our food project currently focuses on reaching the most isolated groups, who would struggle the most to access food from State-mandated or alternative distributions.

Supporting displaced communities observing Ramadan

Many of the communities we are still reaching through our distributions will soon begin observing Ramadan, which is expected to begin this year on Friday 28th February or Saturday 1st of March. Being able to include additional items for our food distributions during this holy period would give comfort and additional support to people stuck in Calais, during a time when food is even more important. With your help, we can ensure the people we support have access to preferred items to cook an enjoyable and nutritious Iftar meal. We are raising funds to be able to provide dates, eggs, and onions in our distributions for the month of Ramadan. Dates are culturally and religiously significant during Ramadan, as many cultures follow the Islamic tradition of breaking fast with three dates. Eggs and onions are items which have been ranked highly as preferred items for cooking whenever we asked for community feedback about the items we include in our food packs, and which we have unfortunately been unable to provide in recent months, simply due to lack of funds.

State-mandated provision of food for people on the move in Calais is completely inadequate, limited to breakfast and lunch and only at certain locations. For the more isolated communities, this can sometimes mean more than an hour’s walk in order to access a single ready-to-eat meal. This inflexible approach will become even more difficult for isolated communities during the holy period, as people’s sleeping and eating schedules are altered in order to observe Ramadan. During Ramadan, those observing fast throughout the day, often rising before dawn for Suhoor (pre-dawn meal) and breaking fast with an Iftar meal at dusk. Walking long distances to reach state-mandated distributions for breakfast distributions running from 9-11am may pose even more significant challenges for isolated communities during the observation of Ramadan. Furthermore, communities are unable to join together for a communal Iftar meal in line with cultural and religious traditions when relying on collecting and storing ready to eat, single person food packages. Our Ramadan distributions, thanks to you, will mean that the communities we support can observe Ramadan in as much of a regular way as possible, despite the extremely precarious living conditions they experience in Calais. Faith is important to a lot of the people we support, and eating together, following traditions, and retaining a sense of religious and cultural autonomy can be a real source of comfort for people during an extremely difficult time in their lives.

It is incredibly important that we do our best to support communities during Ramadan by providing these extra items. The addition of dates, eggs, and onions to our food distributions will make a big difference in enabling communities to cook together and follow the traditions of their faith.

Our fundraising goal is £3,800. This would allow us to buy:

- One palette of dates: £2,500 (£2.50 for one person for the month)

- 5600 eggs : £844 (£1.80 for one person for the month)

- 969 kg of onions: £487 (£1.68 for one person for the month)

By donating £20, you pay for a food pack for 15 people, including the additional items!

*Prices listed have been converted from cost in euros to pounds so may involve slight variations.

Your support

We are relying on your donations to ensure we can support people on the move in Calais as they observe Ramadan in a way that honours their cultural and religious needs and preferences.

The impact of your donation:

£20 will allow us to provide onions for a group of 12 for the whole month of Ramadan.

£50 will allow twenty people to break fast in the traditional way, with three dates, every evening throughout the holy month.

£250 will allow us to add eggs as an additional item for our town centre distribution throughout Ramadan.

Please donate! If you are unable to donate, please consider sharing our campaign to help us fund these highly valued items for displaced communities observing Ramadan in Calais! You can help us by sharing the link for this crowdfunding page directly with your friends and family, to groups you are organising with, and to Instagram stories.