Every morning, news sites and social media are filled with stories about the worsening crisis facing migrants in Europe — of the 350,000 to have reached Europe’s shores from north Africa and the Middle East this year, tens of thousands are stranded at border camps waiting for applications for asylum, while others attempt to find shelter and food in cities and towns across the continent. Some 3,500 have died in the attempt to seek refuge from poverty, or unrest.
While governments debate how best to tackle the desperate conditions facing displaced people in Europe, here are a few things you can do to help:
1. Donate money
There are a number of organizations that you can donate to. Médecins Sans Frontières and UNICEF are both helping the refugees, along with other well-established organizations like Save the Children and the Red Cross. There are other groups working specifically for this crisis. Migrant Offshore Aid Station sends rescue boats to migrants at risk of drowning, and the Aylan Kurdi Fund was established after a photo of a drowned 3-year-old boy went viral.
Or you can donate to more grassroots efforts, including two set up to help migrants seeking entrance to the U.K. camped out at the French coastal town of Calais: Glasgow Solidarity with Calais Migrants or Association Salam, where individuals are crowdfunding to drive to Calais with supplies.
2. Donate supplies
You can also donate things other than money. Amazon has a registry for supplies to buy for refugees in Calais. Refugees Welcome is a kind of “Airbnb for refugees” where people can share their homes with the migrants. Some organizations are looking for very specific types of donations – The Jungle Library is a makeshift library set up at the migrant camp in Calais, and it’s looking for books. Music Against Borders is seeking musical instruments for the camp at Calais.
Or — if you live nearby — you can donate whatever you have by going to one of the drop-off sites organized by Calais People to People Solidarity or Calais Action.
3. Lobby the government
There are numerous petitions you can sign calling for European governments to accept more migrants, or you can lobby the government yourself. Avaaz.org is looking for volunteers in Europe to lobby their local legislatures to increase the number of refugees housed in their area.
Photographers Aim to Put a Face on Europe's Migrant Crisis
Refugees from Libya rest in Ras Ajdir, a coastal town on the border between Libya and Tunisia in March, 2011. Davide Monteleone—VIIRefugees run to reach their transport to continue their journey in Libya, near the border with Egypt, May 18, 2014.Giulio Piscitelli—Contrasto/ReduxMigrants get ready to board the boat to reach Italy from the coast of Zarzis, Tunisia, March 13, 2011. Davide Monteleone—VIIA row of corpses line Al-Baida Beach in Bir Ali, Yemen, May 2, 2007. A total of 34 bodies were found. Just one week after an almost identical tragedy saw 30 dead on a nearby beach, Somali smugglers continued to drop their human cargo out at sea rather than coming close to shore and risking detection. Alixandra Fazzina—NOORA group of men look out to the city of Melilla, Spain from a garbage dump in Morocco in Nov. 2004. It is a short distance from North Africa to mainland Spain.
Olivier Jobard—MYOPA smuggler's boat bringing illegal immigrants from North Africa to the Canary Islands capsized near the coast in Nov. 2004.
Few could swim and two men drowned. Olivier Jobard—MYOPAfter a shipwreck off the coast of Morocco in Nov. 2004, only four of 34 men still had their shoes. The others lost everything, including their clothes, and had to make sandals out of makeshift items such as plastic bottles. Olivier Joabrd—MYOPItalian navy rescues asylum seekers traveling by boat off the coast of Africa on the Mediterranean, June 7, 2014.Massimo Sestini—PolarisTwo Afghan boys throw stones into the sea, while waiting for the evening to arrive, when they can sneak into the port and board a ship bound for Italy illegally in Patras, Italy, March 8, 2012. Patras is one of the main escape points from Greece, due to the numerous cargo ships that dock in the port and are bound for Italy. Alessandro Penso—Magnum Foundation Mohamed from Morocco and his friends hide behind the rocks at
the port, waiting for the right moment to illegally board a ship to Italy from Corinth, Greece, Feb. 21, 2012. In Greece, more than 99.5 percent of requests for political asylum are rejected, so these young people are forced to hide from the authorities.Alessandro Penso—Magnum Foundation Sub-Saharan migrants scale a metallic fence that divides Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla, May 28, 2014. Santi Palacios—APRoughly 250 refugees from Egypt and Syria, among other countries, are checked by Doctors Without Borders as they disembark from an Italian ship, after being intercepted and rescued at sea en route to Italy from Egypt to the port in Pozzallo, Sicily, Italy, in Sept. 2014.Lynsey Addario—Getty Images ReportageA family of Syrian refugees holds its identification. Nearly 300 Syrians landed in the port of Catania, Dec. 6, 2014.Alessio Mamo—ReduxAfghan refugees, Kabir and Zaher, sit by a fire in Subotica, Serbia, Nov. 10, 2012. Zaher, who lost his left leg below the knees, made it to Serbia on crutches. Zaher says he is 16 and Kabir 15. The two were traveling together from Greece. The men lived outdoors in Subotica, waiting for smugglers to give the green light to continue their journey. Daniel Etter—ReduxRefugees from Syria inside the Harmanli camp in Bulgaria, Nov. 19, 2013. The biggest of Bulgaria’s “emergency centers” for refugees is in the town of Harmanli, about 18 miles (30 km) away from the Turkish border, where around 1,000 asylum-seekers are being detained on a former military base.Alessandro Penso—Magnum FoundationA young girl from Syria cooks inside the Harmanli camp in Bulgaria, Nov. 19, 2013. People living in tents have no access to sanitation facilities. Although there are four toilets in a building at the entrance of the center, they are frequently blocked and hardly adequate for hundreds of people. The tents are not heated and the residents sleep either on thin mattresses or on old foldable beds.Alessandro Penso—Magnum FoundationNezarisa Sakhi, a 31-year-old Iraqi, in Banya refugee center in Bulgaria on May 16, 2014. Sakhi was attacked on the evening of Sept. 16, 2013 by nine Bulgarians, one of whom Nezarisa says had a knife. He was beaten and pushed off a bridge, breaking his leg. Alessandro Penso—Magnum FoundationNawras Soukhta, a 15-year-old from Damascus, sits in the train traveling from Stockholm to Malmö, Sweden, a few hours after his plane lands in Sweden on Oct. 22, 2014. After 11 days sailing to Italy from Turkey, and another week traveling through Italy, the train ride to Malmö is the final leg of a three-week journey he has made in the hopes of applying for asylum in Sweden. Mackenzie Knowles-CoursinMansour, an immigrant from Mali waits a friend in downtown Sofia, Bulgaria, Dec. 7, 2014. He is in a shelter in south-western part of the city. Giulio Piscitelli—Contrasto/ReduxA pair of trousers lie on the seabed near the shipwreck of the 66-foot-long fishing boat that sank off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa lies at a depth of 164 ft. on the seabed, Sept. 22, 2014. The tragedy that happened a year ago on Oct. 3, 2013 killed 366 migrants from North Africa. Francesco Zizola—NOOR
