THERE ARE ALREADY plenty of reasons to love Aisling Bea. Yet, she still just keeps giving us all more.
This morning, she took to Instagram to talk about how she has been volunteering for Help Refugees UK and the Refugee Community Kitchen for the last week alongside writer and comedian Sara Pascoe.
Refugee Community Kitchen shared a video of Aisling and Sara, where Aisling appealed for people to donate to the cause:
There are people making fresh, hot food, every single day. 1,400 meals every single day. So they’re badly in need of donations. It’s a little bit of humanity, hope. It’s delicious food, which is just such a nice thing to be able to do for people in quite a bad state.
On Aisling’s personal Instagram, she shared plenty of photos from her trip.
Despite obvious moments of sadness hearing some of the people’s stories, we had such an amazing experience in Calais with @helprefugeesuk and @refugeecommunitykitchen and volunteers this week. Most of what they do is about showing humanity and love during quite a cruel and scary time and giving dignity and some hope to people in quite terrible times in their lives.
She explained that the 1,400 meals that are made each day are given to families, children and many young teenagers who are on their own at the refugee camp.
We helped with the kitchen and distribution and everyone, both the volunteers and the refugees were so kind and sweet and polite despite the police having come and destroyed their tents and smashing some of their phones the night before. They need people to volunteer and money to help run it. I personally feel there is only something to gain from looking outside our own troubles and experience bubble, and it was a very inspiring trip.
Shortly after, Aisling uploaded another photo to Instagram, thanking The Guilty Feminist podcast run by Deborah Frances-White for setting up a comedy show called ‘Comics for Calais’, which Aisling participated in.
It’s so easy to be cynical and lose hope that there’s anything we can do, but sometimes the act of trying and people knowing that they’re seen and that they matter is worth a million bucks. This will hopefully be the first of many trips and I would thoroughly recommend getting in touch about volunteering.
It may not be easy, but it fills your heart all the same. Some volunteers work at the women’s centre and just play with the kids. You can also buy everything from jumpers to tents to a torch at the #ChooseLove online shop.
