Tatdown for refugees at Leeds Festival apocalypse
Tagged as: migration repression social_strugglesNeighbourhoods: leeds
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On Monday 30th and Tuesday 31st August 2010, a group of volunteers from the Leeds and Bradford areas went to the site of the Leeds Festival, held over the previous weekend, to salvage tents, sleeping bags and clothing for refugees in Calais who are seeking asylum but denied access to shelter and the right to work there.















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Arriving on site on Monday afternoon, after the festival sight had officially closed, the group encountered what an only be described as apocalyptic scenes. The entire camping area was strewn with litter, debris, tents and other camping equipment stretching as far as the eye can see in all directions. There was barely a patch of grass anywhere where items had not been left by festivalgoers in a depressing display of utterly wasteful behaviour.
A large proportion of the tents that remained contained open bottles of urine and some even had human faeces inside. Many had been slashed open by people hoping to find valuables within and too lazy to open the zipped door of the tents, meaning that they were then unable to be reused for those in need. Huge mounds of litter were scattered around and were blowing towards the city in the wind, and many tents were simply burned to the ground with aerosol cans and other combustible materials inside. To say that this painted a picture of those attending as disrespectful both to their environment and the needs of others is an understatement. The total purchase cost of that left behind must have run into tens of thousands of pounds, much of it destroyed and so destined for landfill.
The job of identifying clean and reusable equipment began in earnest, and despite the damage done to much of what remained, there was still a large amount that was fit to be reused.
The final destination for the equipment was Calais, where conditions have been steadily worsening for refugees who are trapped there since the Sangatte refugee camp closed in 2002. Thousands of refugees face daily repression by the french police including the destruction of the camps that are set up to provide them with shelter and the removal of sleeping equipment such as tents and sleeping bags. No Borders recently put out an urgent appeal for such items as with winter approaching, the potential for a humanitarian catastrophe is looming large.
By the end of the first day, the transit van was full to bursting with large sacks of equipment. This included 3 sacks of sleeping bags, 3 sacks of tents, 2 sacks of roll mats which provide insulation from cold ground and a large quantity of mens clothing. Good quality cooking equipment was also salvaged along with other items which could be redistributed to the refugees in Calais. Assistance was given to the effort by members of the Scouts and the Rotary Club of Leeds in a strange yet much appreciated show of solidarity after they discovered the reason we were salvaging the equipment. Other groups on site were also collecting similar equipment to be sent for the aid of those hit by the recent floods in Pakistan. The equiment was taken to a storage area temporarily ready to be taken to France later this month.
On the second day, a new set of volunteers joined the effort and there was still much remaining to collect. Whilst many of the tents had been destroyed by previous scavengers and beyond repair, the volunteers were still able to collect another vanload of equipment on the second day.
Due to limited amounts of space in the van that is going to Calais, we were not able to collect any of the huge quantities of food that was left behind by festival attendees for that purpose, focusing instead on the urgent requirements for tents, sleeping bags and clothing. Instead, several bags of it were collected for redistribution to projects in the Leeds and Bradford area such as BIASAN (The Bradford Immigration & Asylum Support & Advice Network) since it would all most likely have ended up in landfill along with the rest of the debris.
With another vanload taken to the storage area ready to be shipped to Calais, it was disheartening to see how much we had to leave behind for lack of time, storage and vehicle space, though hopefully the pile of equipment we were able to salvage will certainly go some way towards temporarily alleviating the mounting crisis in Calais.
It is easy to become negative towards human behaviour when seeing both the levels of waste at the festival, and the terrible conditions that the refugees in Calais face daily. Had those who intended to leave their equipment taken the time to pack them away before doing so, more could have been done with the limited time available to help others in need. The need to take responsibility for ourselves, our environment and to show solidarity and mutual respect towards our fellow humans and animals is becoming becoming ever more pressing as we move into an uncertain future. The situation in Calais is worsening, and the need for solidarity is increasing. If by reading this you would like to know more and ways in which you can help, or have any camping equipment, sleeping bags or blankets you could donate, please see the website below or email calaisolidarity at gmail.com or leedsnoborders at riseup.net
Attached Files
Resistance! article about the situation in Calais
Links:
Calais Migrant Solidarity blog
Contact email: jimdog@northern-indymedia.org
Additions
other collectors
South Leeds Community Radio have an interview with a group called "Everything is Possible" who have also been collecting unwanted gear from the Leeds Festival. They have been selling it to raise funds for their youth work.
Listen to the interview here: http://www.southleedscommunityradio.org.uk/
More info on the Leeds Fest tat-down
The "Tat Down" of Leeds Festival was organised by SolAIDarity, an offshoot of the AT Coop in conjunction with activists from the No Borders network. Funding came in a form of a grant from Lush.
Formed only this year, this was the second such successful salvage of a festival by SolAIDarity. The first was at Glastonbury where a similar operation filled five large vans. This material has been already distributed.
The tents, sleeping equipment and other materials salvaged from Leeds (and we could have got so much more) will be divided among several different groups. One half is going migrants in Calais. The other half to homeless and refugee groups in Leeds and Newcastle in expectation of a cold winter ahead for many people on the streets.
Though these festivals run their own salvage operations, there is so much stuff that is abandoned or willfully destroyed that vast quantities is simply landfilled. Our position is that we really would rather that this was not needed, that people took care of their equipment and recognized the waste of resources that takes place. Given the urgency of the humanitarian need on our streets and in migrant communities across Europe such wastefulness is simply abhorrent. We strongly encourage festival goers to take more responsibility. The chances are that anything abandoned will not end up being salvaged but being bulldozed into a hole in the ground.
AT Coop (www.atcoop.org.uk) supply equipment and advice for grassroots campaign groups who want to put on outdoor events with ecological bent (for example Earth First!, Climate Camp, the Permaculture Convergence).
For more information SolAIDarity contact solaidarity{{at}}hidinginthebushes.org.uk