230 PEOPLE. ONE DINGHY. BUT LOOK AT THE MACHINE SURROUNDING THE CHANNEL. On 10 August, a single inflatable carried a record 230 people across the Channel to Britain. The previous record was 165.The average load has gone from roughly 7 people per boat in 2018 to around 63 today. But the dinghy is only the part everyone sees. NGO database maps 126 organisations operating across the British asylum, migration and refugee sector, northern France and Europe. And when you look at Calais and the wider support network, the scale is remarkable. CARE4CALAIS 🇬🇧🇫🇷🇧🇪 UK, France & Belgium £1.45 MILLION annual income £1.89 MILLION annual expenditure 25 employees Around 2,100 volunteers Direct aid and social support. UTOPIA 56 🇫🇷 Eight operating branches including Calais, Grande-Synthe and Lille €2.97 MILLION income* 41 salaried staff Around 3,500 volunteers In northern France in 2024 alone: → Approx. 1,950 outreach rounds → 900 tents distributed → 6,650 blankets/sleeping bags → Around 680 incidents involving failed Channel crossings → At least 16,600 people assisted → Nearly 700 distress-at-sea calls → A 24/7 emergency telephone line L’AUBERGE DES MIGRANTS 🇫🇷 Calais / Dunkirk Runs a shared Calais warehouse used by seven associations. Its operation includes: → 900+ meals at a time, three times weekly → Clothing and blanket distribution → Firewood → Multilingual information → Device charging → SIM cards → Phone-credit support It reports roughly 118,000 volunteer hours a year. REFUGEE COMMUNITY KITCHEN 🇬🇧🇫🇷🇧🇪 Calais, Dunkirk, Brussels & London £586,000 annual income 19 employees Around 320 volunteers Its core operation is preparing and distributing food and providing access to essential services. CHOOSE LOVE 🇬🇧🌍 Operates as a grant-maker across 25+ countries, including France. £12.59 MILLION annual income £8.22 MILLION expenditure 29 employees 365 volunteers Its disclosed funding network includes major international foundations and philanthropic vehicles. Historically, L’Auberge des Migrants says Choose Love financed up to 70% of the associations operating from its shared Calais warehouse before withdrawing from Calais in 2021. Then look at the giants whose work is much broader than Channel migration: SECOURS CATHOLIQUE / CARITAS FRANCE €152.6 MILLION annual income 910 FTE staff 58,000 volunteers It operates nationally, including a Pas-de-Calais operation supporting people in exile. MÉDECINS DU MONDE FRANCE €148.6 MILLION annual income Hundreds of staff Thousands participating across its wider operation Its public funding alone was approximately: €73.8 MILLION including EU, French, German, Canadian and UN funding. And on the British side: BRITISH RED CROSS £287.1 MILLION annual income 3,286 employees 10,200 volunteers Its refugee services are only ONE PART of that enormous organisation, so that £287m must not be misrepresented as Channel spending. This is the scale people need to understand. The record 230-person dinghy is one boat. Behind the Channel issue sits an ecosystem involving: Thousands of volunteers. Hundreds of employees. Warehouses. Food distribution. Tents. Blankets. Transport. Phones. SIM cards. Charging. Legal assistance. Emergency lines. Foundations. Corporate donors. Government funding. EU funding. And we have now mapped 126 organisations involved in the wider ecosystem. The next job is not rhetoric. It is ACCOUNTING. Which organisations operate where? Who funds them? How much money reaches northern France? Which services directly intersect with Channel crossings? Which organisations receive public money? Which are privately funded? 230 people fitted onto one dinghy. Now imagine the size of the infrastructure surrounding the route.
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