Last night my husband and I had date night at communications agency (gallery and bookshop) KK Outlet. They were hosting a salon-style dinner event that made me feel better about humanity, though it could make you feel worse. Three speakers were invited to talk on the subject of Home in between us all eating a really quite delicious three course meal. First up were Charlotte Cramer and Scarlett Montanaro from Crack & Cider.

They set up their not-for-profit business to help London’s 7,500 + rough sleepers by selling useful items for them – winter coats, fleeces and hat/socks/gloves sets – to customers like us. The pair had done their research, spotted where established charities are letting down the homeless (many of which have never seen aid) and talked about the psychology of being ignored by hundreds of people on a daily basis, often having ended up in the situation through neglect in the first place. They’ve perhaps unusually opted to treat the symptoms rather than get lost in the cause and it’s a less abstract way of allowing people to help.

The next speaker was Ilse Crawford who you don’t need me to introduce and I am going to skim over  for that reason (but will come back to in a bit – I’m loving her book right now).

After her was a man whose story is pertinent given where our country finds itself politically. Gulwali Passarlay is a 20 year old refugee and activist from Afghanistan who spent a year of his life when he was only 12, making the horrific and terrifying (there are no other words for it) journey from his home to the UK. I sat opposite him at dinner and along with a few others had already chatted to him a bit in that strangers-at-a-dinner-party way. We were all bowled over and humbled when he got up and shared his story.

That’s a map inside the book he’s written about his journey, showing just how far he had to go. He described to us – without harrowing detail – how his mother had sent he and his 13 year old brother away because she thought they were unsafe in Afghanistan and how he’d become separated from his brother by the time he’d reached Turkey. How he’d had to throw himself off a moving train, how others doing so weren’t so lucky as they broke their limbs in the process. How he had to get on one of those boats we hear about every day, to reach Greece, and how he imagined people there saving him. How people did not save him. How he eventually, somehow reached Callais and the jungle we also hear about on the news. How the conditions there are unbelievably bad and he was arrested on a daily basis and nobody believed anything he told them. How other camp dwellers would surround him as they walked and when they saw police would start to run to trick them into thinking he’d run too so as to give him a bit of a break. 

There is so much more to his story than I ought to go into here, so buy his book. Somehow he told us everything with laughs and lightness and underlined that his mission now is to educate and spread understanding. Which he’s making an excellent job of via Ted talks and going on This Morning (he showed us selfies with Fern and Pip), alongside studying Politics in Manchester.

Back on our table, the thing he told us was the absolute worse for refugees is when people don’t believe them. One of the girls in our conversation mentioned that Secret Cinema has been to the Jungle in Calais lately to screen cinema nights for refugees and Gulwali thought this was great as it’s such a boring place to be as well as everything else.

The main thing I’m taking away from recent events and last night is that there are a lot of brilliant humans out there.

Keep track of upcoming Meal Ticket events at KK Outlet here.