The Funk and Soul Fundraiser that raised over £1000 for refugees in Calais returns October 2024 for round 2!
Earlier this year, event organiser, ex-Calais volunteer and funk-soul enthusiast Beth Low used her love of music to create ‘The Funkraiser’. The Funkraiser is a vinyl soul and funk night based in Leeds that raises money for charities that work with refugees on the French border. After raising £1500 for Collective Aid in June, the event is back on Saturday 19th October, aiming to collect money for youth organisation, Kaleidoscope. Keep reading to find out everything that you need to know about this brilliant Leeds fundraiser.
On 19th October 2024, Wharf Chambers will be taken over by DJs Muddy Brown and Ben from Bradford as they spin funk and soul vinyls all night long to raise money for refugee charity, Kaleidoscope. We had a chat with the genius behind this magnificent fundraiser, Beth Low, to find out more about her experiences in Calais and why this event is so important.
How It All Started…
~ Tell us about your experiences of working in Calais ~
Working in Calais was the best, but hardest thing I’ve ever done. Obviously, you go with a lot of anticipation of what you might see and what it’s going to be like, but nothing could have prepared me to bear witness day after day of the direct consequences of our own government’s decisions and funding to the French border control police. Calais has fallen out of the news since 2016 when the French government burnt down the refugee camp referred to as ‘The Jungle’. Everyone hears about the boats, but I feel like the situation and human rights violations in Calais have very much been forgotten.
The reality is that the situation is the worst it has ever been. Numbers are rising, obviously, as the conflicts around the world are rising. When I was there in November and December, there were roughly 4000 people sleeping rough and trying to survive in Calais; this is very unusual for such a cold and brutal time of the year. Crossing and living outdoors gets very dangerous but these people simply have no other choice. They often go to the UK because they have family there, or can speak English as their second language.
As Warsan Shire says wrote in her poem Home,
“no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well
…
you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land”
Whilst I was there for two months with the charity Project Play, I worked with over 100 children, some being as young as only a few months old. We were trying to offer a service of play, joy and support, in a space where children have no access to just be children. I witnessed whole families get evicted, have their tents slashed in front of them and their few belongings taken when the temperatures got as low as -1 degrees. I saw families distraught and covered in sand in November when there were failed crossings. Children in minus temperatures with no socks and no food, and yet still with smiles on their faces. So many people distraught because they could no longer access water that Calais Food Collective (a bunch of brilliant 20-something year old volunteers) organise, due to local people putting human faeces in the water container. Children being teargassed by the police. Volunteers arrested for trying to aid vulnerable, innocent and beautiful people. I attended 12 memorials, often for people who had died at sea but no one knew their names. One was for a Sudanese man, killed by police brutality. A 7 year old girl also died at sea in January, her family still haven’t been able to get her body to have a proper funeral.
It really wasn’t easy! But it felt so good to be part of a resistance team. The people in Calais are the kindest, coolest, bravest people you’ll ever meet. Although the work was hard, it was made so much easier by the love and momentum of people there. The volunteer community is so powerful, everyone there has made the choice to try and act in resistance to our government’s willingness and border policies that wishes death upon those who have been through the worst already. The people who only, because of the random lottery of where they were born, are treated like rats, not people.
~ Why did this motivate you to start your fundraising event?~
Well, as you’ve probably guessed, I’m very angry and passionate about this issue; when I came back to the UK, I was both heartbroken and a bit lost. Realising that our government does this, and that our taxes fund this (the British taxpayer has paid the French border police £232 million since 2014, and are due another £476 million between 2023/26), is not an easy thing to sit with. I didn’t know what to do with it all. But after a while, I was able to reflect on what Project Play taught me; no matter how angry and emotional you are, joy is also such a powerful part of resistance. Crying for the children I worked for couldn’t actually help them, but putting on play sessions, singing stupid songs and acting out a tea party really could.
I recently read, ‘to change the world, you need to throw a better party than those destroying it’, and that’s exactly what I aimed to do with The Funkraiser. It’s nothing crazy special, but a bunch of people dancing to great music and making a few hundred pounds every couple of months to stand in solidarity and keep the topic on people’s radars? Now that fills me with joy.
The Funkraiser
The first Funkraiser poster.
~What are your aims and goals of the event?~
First and foremost, my main goal was to raise money for Calais, funding this year has been even harder as the main celebrity sponsored charity Choose love has just gone under. Secondly, and more selfishly, I wanted to create an event where people really came to dance and treat each other well; making a space where all attendees care about this issue, and want to have a good time. It has been very successful and a lot of fun! Dancing is way more uplifting than lecturing people about Calais, and a lot more accessible!
I have done a lot of leafleting, putting posters up, and talking to local people and businesses. I feel like the small impact of talking about refugees and the situation in Calais with lots of people, for even a few minutes, means that I’m able to do my own bit of not allowing the issue be forgotten when it isn’t plastered on the news, or spoken about with no empathy or with cruel racist manipulation. I also hope that people who might know about Calais and feel hopeless, may see this event and feel comforted that people still really care and want to do something, in the same way I feel when I see fundraisers for Palestine and now Lebanon and Sudan. It’s a relief to not feel alone in this time of great grief, but it’s also really great to do something and ask people to wake up and get involved and help with what’s going on LITERALLY on our doorstep.
~Why funk and soul music?~
Because it’s the best duh! It makes everyone move and has such a rich history of using joy and dance as a form of resistance. I love it, my mate and the DJ for The Funkraiser Ben loves it, and Leeds loves it, so it’s a win all around. You can’t be miserable when you listen to it, and it’s also a genre that you really don’t need to know any of the songs to enjoy and dance to.
Collective Aid
The first Funkraiser earlier this year raised money for Collective Aid.
Collective Aid logo: https://www.collectiveaidngo.org/
Collective Aid is one of the main organisations on the ground in Calais to distribute life-saving aid. An average of 2000 people have been sleeping and living in horrific living conditions in Calais. Collective Aid distributes clothes, bedding and shelter for these people and play a vital part in their survival, especially in the Winter months that draw closer. None of this would be possible without support, donations, volunteers and fundraisers like this. To find out more about how you can help Collective Aid, visit https://www.calaisappeal.org/how-you-can-help .
~Why did you choose to RAISE MONEY for collective aid AT the first funkraiser?~
The best thing about Calais is that all of the organisations work really closely together. They share a warehouse, and even have a community kitchen where volunteers eat a meal together every day. So even though I was with the brilliant Project Play, I chose collective aid to fundraise for the first Funkraiser because I really cared about a particular legal battle they were fighting at the time. Collective Aid had a wash centre in the town centre, and offered one of the only physical indoor spaces where refugees could just come and be, as well as being able to wash their clothes. However, the french government, as a deterrent, shut down the centre under no legal grounds, and Collective Aid had to fundraise to take the government to court. So that’s what the first Funkraiser was for.
Kaleidoscope
The second Funkraiser on Saturday 19th October 2024 will be raising money for Keleidoscope.
Kaleidoscope logo: https://www.youthkaleidoscope.org/
Kaleidoscope is a youth organisation that supports unaccompanied minors and young people on the French border. Children in Calais experience horrific conditions of harsh weather, overcrowded makeshift camps and constant uncertainty. Kaleidoscope aims to support the emotional, social, personal and educational development of the young people that are living in dire hardship at the border. Visit https://www.youthkaleidoscope.org/ to learn more about the unbelievable work that Kaleidoscope is doing for young people in both Calais and Dunkirk.
~Why have you chosen to raise money for Kaleidoscope this time?~
The second Funkraiser is now for Kaleidoscope, a young people’s charity, born out of Project Play to specialise for the older children/ young adults. When I was in Calais, I got the honour of living in a volunteer house with Meg, who started this charity this time last year. It has been one of the biggest honours to watch how Meg has built this charity with her own two hands and has worked with hundreds of young people this year, offering them support and a place to be and learn and grow into adults, in a place of such hardship. Her and her team are currently trying to get enough money to buy a trailer to have an indoor space, instead of just a gazebo in the rain and wind, to hold these sessions on living sites. It’s so cool and quite rare when it comes to giving to charities to know exactly who and how your money will help, and to personally be able to support Meg a year on makes me quite emotional and very very excited. I CANNOT WAIT!
All of this work helps me feel a lot less hopeless because there are people like Meg and people like me and you, there is so much cool stuff that we can do to help. I think it’s very easy right now to feel overwhelmed and hopeless, but we really can’t use it as an excuse to be passive. Optimism for change is how we bloody fight for something better!
Click here to buy a Funkraiser ticket/donate to kaleidoscope. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-funkraiser-tickets-1020567784717?aff=ebdssbdestsearch.
