September 3, 2015 5.04 pm This story is over 102 months old

Lincoln businesswoman sets up collection point for refugee crisis

Donations welcome: A Lincoln entrepreneur has arranged a special collection point in the city for residents to drop off items to help the refugees camping in Calais.

A Lincoln entrepreneur has arranged a special collection point in the city for residents to drop off items to help the refugees camping in Calais.

Emily Kent, an award-winning hair and beauty artist who runs a successful wedding hair company, has organised the collection, which is based on similar projects in other parts of the country.

The drop off will take place at the car park of the Horse and Groom pub in Lincoln LN11RH from 9am to 3pm on Saturday, September 5.

Emily Kent, Director of the Wedding Hair Company, is one of the UK's leading wedding hair and makeup specialists

Emily Kent, Director of the Wedding Hair Company, is one of the UK’s leading wedding hair and makeup specialists

Emily said: “I just wanted to try and do something, even if it’s only small. I found this organisation Calais Action that gave me an opportunity to do something simple and effective.

“The situation in the home countries of the refugees is obviously hugely complex, but they are merely caught up in it as innocent bystanders and we all should think about how we can help in whatever way we can.”

People are being asked to donate shoes, tents, travelling bags, candles, socks and belts, jackets and tinned food.

However, women’s and children’s clothes, sheets and pillows, suits and jumpers are not needed.

The Calais Action group will pick up the collection and transport it to refugees.

Emily said that harrowing pictures, especially of a dead Syrian boy washed up on a beach in Turkey, were one of the reasons why she felt she could not stay detached from the events unfolding on the continent.

She added: “I think the first thing the government and the media alike can do is call them what they are, refugees, not migrants. Of course we have our own strains on resources but this is a crisis that needs to be treated in the same way as a natural disaster.

“You don’t have to dig very deep to see what horrendous living situations they are coping with in Calais and I think generally people aren’t connecting with how desperate a person must be in their home country to take drastic action and risk theirs and their families lives to escape it.”

Emily’s initiative follows on from the efforts of Laura Mckeown, owner of pet and poultry supply business Feathers and Furries in Walcott near Lincoln, who set up a crowdfunder site in order to raise enough money to travel to Calais with a truck-load of essentials.

For more information, email [email protected] or visit their Facebook page.