Bring them home

This week I have decided to write a letter to my local member of parliament, John Howell, asking him to help hundreds of child refugees who are eligible to come to the UK but are left to languish in Calais.

Dear Mr Howell, 

In February this year you kindly wrote to my son and his fellow members of the so-called Secret Society of Nature to congratulate them on raising funds for the World Wildlife Fund. Needless to say, the children were thrilled to receive your letter which recognised their efforts to save endangered animals from extinction.

© Prazis | Dreamstime.com

Today I am writing to you about the child refugees in Calais. While we have a duty to look after our wildlife, we also have a moral obligation to protect vulnerable children and young people, particularly those who have fled war or violence in their own countries. 

Thank you Facebook, it was about time!

A few people I know are still a bit snotty about social media and just occasionally I can understand why. You run the risk of saying something silly on the spur of the moment and not being able to retract it. Or you give away more than you intended to because your settings weren't quite right. In the last few weeks, however, Facebook, Twitter and the like have showed us that they can be a powerful force for good. Thanks to messages and pictures shared on these networks, thousands of people have been galvanised into action to help the refugees trudging across Europe in search of a safe haven.

Tom Clark, a Henley hero

The deeply poignant photograph of the drowned Kurdish toddler Aylan Kurdi, lying face down in the surf as if he had just fallen asleep, was a turning point in the public perception of the refugee crisis. Aylan and his family had set off for Europe in search of a better life, after previously fleeing fighting in Syria. Up until this point, there had been a steady drip-feed of immigration articles and disturbing images on social media, including pictures of other drowned children washing up on beaches, but somehow Aylan tipped the balance. I know many of us found such images highly distressing, particularly within the context of our hokey, homely Facebook feeds, but all those 'shares' of a little boy on the beach meant we had to face up to the horrors going on in the world.