No Name Kitchen

Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

I had volunteered in Calais several times before: even today there are still hundreds of refugees sleeping rough in Calais and Dunkirk. I knew that the organisation I had worked with previously needed help. When I arrived we were a small team working hard to hand out food and clothes under the constant watchful eye of the French riot police. After nearly two months in France, the lockdown was easing and more volunteers were able to travel to join us.  

 I didn’t yet have any work at home to return to, so I looked at what other opportunites there were for me to offer my help. A fellow volunteer in Calais had told me about the refugee situation in Serbia: there was a tiny organisation being run by just one person that really needed help. So I set off with another adventurous volunteer, Stef from Germany, who was on a sabbatical from her job when the pandemic hit. We drove across the eight countries that lay ahead in order to lend a hand. 

 Serbia and Bosnia both border Croatia, the gateway to the European Union. People from Afghanistan, Syria, Iran and elsewhere, all too often end up stuck here on their journey in search of safety. The violence of the Croatian border force is well documented. The reports produced by borderviolence.eu show the terrible things that are funded by all EU members in order to prevent refugees from claiming asylum. I joined the small NGO, No Name Kitchen (NNK), in the Serbian border town of Šid together with 3 or 4 other volunteers. We would cook big pots of food for up to 100 people who couldn’t access the camps and were living in the woods. We provided clothes and bedding when resources allowed.  

 However, even worse than this was the situation in Bosnia. After two months in Serbia, No Name Kitchen asked Stef and I to journey to the Bosnian city of Bihać to start a project there. The beautiful, mountainous surroundings harbour a dire situation. As in Serbia, there are camps in Bosnia - but everything is worse. The camps are full and inadequate and 4,000 people sleep outside in and around the city. It was a huge responsibility, No Name Kitchen were trusting us to represent them in a new place and to make decisions about how best to spend our limited funds.  

 Providing such aid in an organised way is criminalised in Bosnia. It is illegal to provide food and clothes to people who have nothing, even giving someone a lift to the hospital is against the law. The friends we made stay in abandoned buildings in the city or in the fields and woods around the city. The border with Croatia is high in the mountains and the violent efforts of Croatian and Bosnian forces are worse here than in Serbia. Walking in the park, guys would approach us and offer their testimonies about the most recent abuses they had suffered. Most of them had been illegally deported dozens of times, and had all their possessions stolen or destroyed in the process. The injuries (which it was illegal to help with) ranged from bruises from batons to broken arms and head wounds.  

 No Name Kitchen works hard to collaborate with other organisations. In Bihać, we worked closely with the Jesuit Refugee Service. We stayed in their house and they helped with translation and local knowledge. I thought it fitting to have left my job at Farm Street, only to somehow end up amongst the Jesuit community again, many miles and months later.  

 The work I did in France, Serbia and Bosnia has been life-changing. It is impossible for me to unsee what I saw and to forget the friends that I have made. There were so many times when I had to say sorry, and turn down someone’s request for food or clothes, due to funds or police pressure. But the one thing I said I would do, is to inform people at home of this terrible situation, of which I was largely ignorant just a few months ago. So here I am.  

 Please consider supporting the work of No Name Kitchen. You can make an online donation via www.hannahparry.co.uk 

Hannah Parry

Hannah Parry played the organ here at Farm Street Church. When places of worship were forced to close due to the pandemic started, Hannah volunteered with refugee organisations across Europe, bearing witness to the abuse and brutality that’s suffered by countless people in search of safety and protection. Working with the small NGO, No Name Kitchen, Hannah not only gave out food and clothes, but collected the testimonies from victims of border violence who suffer pushback and collective expulsion on a daily basis.