Join one of the 5 groups that are supporting refugees in France, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina

Refugees programs – Hey 🙂 Here are 5 groups that support refugees in France, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. To continue their important work, they are dependent on the support of volunteers. The tasks are mostly:

• cooking,
• distributing food and material aid,
• providing healthcare,
• legal and social support,
• facilitating camp services, showers, clothes & washing services etc.

Special skills are welcome but not necessarily required – you can learn everything there 🙂 !

General information

In general, you should have respect for all human beings and take your work seriously. Would be great if you want to join one of the groups, both – for a short period of time or even long term 🙂 The minimum time that you should spend with the group differs from one day to 4 weeks, generally: the longer the better. But some groups, such as Utopia56, also need short-term volunteers.

Note❗

If you are volunteering for the first time in this kind of support structures, it might be a good idea to go to Calais or other places in France first, before going to the Balcans, since the situation there can be very difficult and tense.
If you can’t join the groups at the moment, they are also in constant need of monetary donations to keep up their work, so it would be great if you could contribute to that somehow.

Below you’ll also find two organizations that could need your support from wherever you are – Balkanbrücke and Seebrücke.

Here is an overview of important information about the five groups that are searching for volunteers:

1. Refugee community kitchen works in Calais, France – Cooking and serving thousands of warm meals a day

they urgently need more volunteers, no experience necessary! You can work in the kitchen (chopping, cooking, washing up…), as a driver, sorting the storage, etc. Due to Covid-19, you have to volunteer for at least 2 weeks:

👉https://www.refugeecommunitykitchen.com/volunteer
(video about RCK looking for volunteers: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=155259369370961 )

2. Utopia56 works in different places in France

There are different projects and tasks every day such as distributing food, clothes, sleeping bags etc. They also try to support people with their access to healthcare and legal and social support etc. The minimum time is e.g. 1 day in Paris, 2 weeks in Calais:

👉http://www.utopia56.com/en

3. Collective Aid currently works in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and France

Tasks are facilitating camp services, showers, clothes & washing services, providing food, safe water, and essential material aid. Minimum stay is at least 4 weeks.

👉https://www.collectiveaidngo.org/volunteer

4. ComPass 071

ComPass 071 supports people on the move living in or transiting through Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Compass071 runs a community centre, where people can take showers, wash their clothes, and get food. They are looking for male volunteers mainly, you should stay at least 1 month, and they need you from now on.

For further information send an email with a short description of yourself to

👉volunteer.compass071@gmail.com – Fb page: https://www.facebook.com/ComPass071/

5. No Name Kitchen (NNK)

is an NGO, that is comprised of volunteers from several countries and develops its activities in Šid (Serbia), 5km away from the Croatian border, in Velika Kladuša (Bosnia), 2km away from the Croatian border. They do cooking and food distribution, washing, showering, medical first aid and legal support. You should stay for at least a month and since the situation can be complicated and stressful since it is a border area, you should have experience in working with people on the move and ideally in a border area.

👉http://www.nonamekitchen.org/contacto/

Alternative help

If you can’t or don’t want to go somewhere abroad, there is also a lot of important activism that you can do from here, like with Balkanbrücke, to raise and publish information about the situation of people on the move on the so-called Balkan route. They are a german-speaking organisation.

Further info: https://balkanbruecke.org/

contact: info@balkanbruecke.org

As Balkanbruecke Supports they also support local projects in the Balcans that support people on the move – you are welcome to donate to that cause:

👉https://balkanbrueckesupports.org

Direct link for donation:👉 http://gf.me/u/y69kut

Seebrücke

Seebrücke is an international movement in solidarity with refugees that demands “the establishment of safe routes for refugees to stop the criminalisation of sea rescue and to receive them in a humane way whilst respecting their rights”. You can support, e.g. by making your city a so-called safe harbour.

👉https://seebruecke.org/en/local-groups/

A big thank you to all of you, who are able and willing to support the groups by volunteering, donating or by getting active in an organization!

The announcement was written by Julia Frey. The first picture is the property of No Name Kitchen which allowed its use. 

See more volunteer opportunities with Refugees