Volunteers travelled to the French port town on Friday to begin work on the structure using materials donated by Normans.
And architect Evan Smith, who compared the scene in Calais to that of ‘a post-apocalyptic world’, said his goal now was to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds to set up a central hub in the camp and build more potentially life-saving shelters there.
- The Jungle is the name of a series of camps near the French port of Calais
- In September 2014 The Guardian estimated that there were 1,300 migrants in Calais, mostly from Eritrea, Somalia and Syria
- In July 2015 The Daily Telegraph reported that the jungle had 3,000 inhabitants. It is now estimated that there are 3,500 in the camp
- The camp is mainly occupied by young men
- Architect Evan Smith, who has travelled to Calais to offer aid, says from his experience many of the men have already paid for smugglers to take their wives and children across the Channel to the UK
- In a dawn raid in September 2009 the French authorities closed down a camp occupied by up to 800 migrants. In total, 276 people, mainly Afghans, were detained
Our reporter recently visited The Jungle. Read about his experience here
But the trip nearly failed before it even began. Mr Smith said the van drivers, who drove to Calais from St Malo, were approached by a group of migrants as they entered the camp and had a large amount of timber stolen.
‘You see the best and worst of humanity out there,’ he said.
‘Lots of them came to apologise after they realised we were building a shelter.’
Before the convoy left Jersey, staff from Condor and Customs officials had to work hard to process some last-minute paperwork to ensure that the materials would make it into France.
Mr Smith, who is originally from Canada, said that the scale of the humanitarian situation nearly brought him and the other volunteers to tears, and he is now intent on raising money through the Jersey Calais Refugee Aid Group and other fundraisers he met in France to set up a central hub for aid.
‘There are no non-governmental organisations there,’ said Mr Smith, who is in contact with a neuropsychiatrist and a former BP employee who have given up their careers to offer aid in Calais.
‘In normal refugees it would be run by the UN, but that is not the case in Calais.
‘People come and go all the time with the best of intentions, but it needs some organisation over there,’.
‘We need hundreds of thousands of pounds and hundreds of people to help under the control of a central hub.’
He added: ‘Jersey has put up the first real structure there.
‘Everyone in the Island should be proud because there are 22 people who are not going to freeze to death this winter.’
Mr Smith is due to travel back to Calais this weekend with up to 12 other volunteers.
They intend to complete work on the large shelter they started last weekend and start building more smaller shelters.
