Father quits job to help Syrian refugees thousands of miles away

Paul Hutchings has given up work as a market researcher to help the Greek army look after Syrians fleeing their country's civil war.

The 48-year-old's family is taking care of the bills while he helps less fortunate families thousands of miles away.

He and fellow volunteer John Sloan have set up the charity Refugee Support Europe, which has now been helping people at the camp in Alexandreia, north-east Greece, since April.

Mr Hutchings, who has two teenage sons and two step-daughters, said: "To me the refugees are just like people like you and I, who through no fault of their own have ended up in a situation trying to make a better life for themselves.

"It's just through pure luck that’s it not you or my family in that situation."

More than four million people have fled Syria since President Bashar al-Assad's bloody crackdown on rebels in 2011 descended into outright civil war.

Refugee Support Europe, which is entirely funded by donations, aims to "make life a little better for everyone on the camp and to support the local Greek economy".

Its key activity is collecting and distributing humanitarian aid to the more than 700 refugees in the camp in a way that is "consistent, fair and dignified".

So far it has set up a free shop, where refugees can pick up toiletries, baby products, tent items and healthy food; a clothes boutique to distribute clothes, with a changing room and hangers; and a community space with a tea bar, games, cinema and high-speed WiFi.

About one third of those in the camp are aged 12 or under and just under half are under 16. They hope eventually to resettle in Europe.

Mr Hutchings said: "This is a full-time job now. I have been self-employed for ten years but with the support of my wife I have got a year where I can dedicate myself to this unpaid and the bills will get paid on the house.

"After a year I will need to find a salary - but this is my life for the next year and we will see what I can do."

The charity has also set up two swings for children at the camp as part of a bigger playground under development, and provides hotel rooms for mothers with newborn babies.

It is working on setting up classrooms in the camp and from September will also be providing regular hot meals.

Mr Hutchings hopes now to work in other camps and has already started similar distribution and support systems in Greece's Giannitsa and Veria camps.

He said he hoped those in power would also do more about the crisis.

Mr Hutchings said: "Not enough resources are being made available and it’s a crisis that’s so huge that large organisations are struggling and cannot move fast enough.

"Those in the camp would like to have a future for their children.

"Most of the parents have given up on the idea that they can have a future themselves."

WE’RE MAKING A DIFFERENCE BUT GOVERNMENTS MUST ACT

For months, if not years, Paul Hutchings had grown increasingly upset at the images on the news of shocked, exhausted, desperate and often injured people trying to make their way across Europe as they fled from bombs, chemical weapons and destroyed homes.

The market researcher wanted to learn more about what was going on so he went to the refugee camp in Calais, known as The Jungle for its appalling and chaotic conditions, where he was further appalled.

“In Calais and across the world I saw people who were victims of war and are just trying to make a better life for themselves and who need much better support than they are getting from government organisations,” said the 48-year-old.

“Refugees are just people like you and I, who through no fault of their own have ended up in a situation trying to make a better life for themselves.

“It’s just through pure luck that it’s not you or my family in that situation.”

Soon he started to help run Care 4 Calais, a volunteer organisation helping in the camp on across the Channel, but he and another volunteer, John Sloan, were looking around for other opportunities to help ease the worst refugee crisis since World War Two.

“We were looking to do a mobile kitchen for people coming through Europe but of course that came at the time of the EU-Turkey deal [designed to stem migrants flow into Europe] so there were many fewer of those coming through.

“John came across this camp in Greece and managed to talk his way past the gates and started convincing the military authorities that run the camp.

“It’s been a long game for us but they now accept us as being an important partner in the camp.”

The pair set up Refugee Support Europe, through which they have been working with more than 100one hundred volunteers to provide food and clothes at the camp and generally create a happier, more dignified place a long way from the squalor for which some camps have become notorious.

Their work includes making simple yet important changes to the living environment, such as providing swings for the children, distributing clothes via a “shop” with mirrors and hangers and putting mums and their newborn babies up in hotels for a few days after leaving hospital.

The Greek army is in overall charge of the camp, which houses families mostly fleeing Syria’s civil war, while a Slovak non-governmental organisation is providing medical care and the United Nations is helping process people’s asylum applications.

Mr Hutchings said the environment they try and create makes it a less troubled place than some of the refugee camps dotting Greece and the Middle East, from where there have been reports of human traffickers preying on young people.

“It can be a difficult place to work but I am 99 per cent confident that is not happening where we are,” Mr Hutchings said, adding that he finds it hard to cope with not being able to do as much as he would like for the refugees.

“The most difficult part is not really having enough to give,” he said. “Many of those that are in the camp were anticipating going to Germany so they had enough money for that but it did not happen.

“They have spent all their money, their clothes and shoes are worn out.

“I cannot just give an individual pairs of shoes – we have to wait until we have enough shoes to give everyone and then do a distribution “Some of them are not adequate and some of them are second-hand, so to say to a grown man, a proud father, that he is going to have to choose from these shoes that are inadequate is really tough.”

His voice cracking with emotion, he added: “There was a man who had been running a shop in Aleppo, Syria, and has three kids and a wife who was pregnant.

“He said, ‘I was running a shop and had my wife and family around me then this war happened and I had to leave because it was impossible to live there’.

“He stood there saying, ‘I cannot live like this – my son was doing well at school and now he is losing out on education, we are stuck in this refuge camp, my wife is in hospital and I cannot help’.

“And he said, ‘I would rather go back to Syria and die than be here’.

“But what I say to ourselves is we are making some kind of difference – it’s a shame that people like us are there because what we really want is for huge organisation and governments to be there and we are just trying to do what we can.”

Mr Hutchings, a father who has quit work for at least one year to dedicate himself to the charity, is among growing numbers of people from Brighton and across the world trying to help refugees, either by donating or working in camps.

He added: “These are temporary refugee camps – in an ideal world we would make ourselves redundant as soon as possible.

“We want them out of these camps and into jobs and into education, so whatever the government can do to get these people out of camps and into permanent housing and education is a good thing.

“What we would like to do is get the word out as much as possible that though we are not seeing huge crowds of people walking through Europe there is still this refugee crisis – people are still living in really awful conditions and we need to raise awareness of that as much as possible.”

Refugee Support Europe relies on volunteers. For more information, visit refugeesupport.eu

THE CHILDREN NEED PROPER HOMES

HOVE’S Labour MP Peter Kyle is backing a call to make sure that by Christmas there are no children living in the refugee camps in Calais.

Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow, wants to extend UK child protection arrangements to child refugees in Calais.

It would mean each child would become the responsibility of a panel and be given a guardian to make decisions about their future.

The UK Government has said it will resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees by 2020 but only from camps outside Europe other than children registered in Greece, Italy or France before March 20.

Locally, Hastings Borough Council said yesterday it had agreed to help find homes for up to 100 Syrian refugees over the next five years for those currently living in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt and Syria.

Council leader Peter Chowney said: “We have all seen the distressing images that have come from Syria, and we want to do all we can to help.

“We want to help families to put the trauma they have suffered behind them and start to rebuild their lives.”

But he added the authority was desperately short of accommodation and was seeking offers of self- contained housing.

He said it was looking for privately rented accommodation, ideally with a one-year tenancy or more, in Hastings.

Rents need to be within Local Housing Allowance rates so that they are affordable to those who find work or who initially have to rely on housing benefit.

Contact Susan Hanson on 01424 451 328 or email shanson@hastings.gov.uk if you can help.