A Photo that Changed the World
In 2015, a photo shook the world: an image of a child’s body, washed up on a beach in the Turkish resort town of Bodrum. Time magazine described it as the most heartbreaking photo of the year. His name was Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old from Syria, who died trying to reach Europe.
For a time, it seemed like the photo of little Alan Kurdi was going to change the world. To a certain extent, it did.
There were approximately 53,000 tweets per hour posted in the 12 hours following the photo’s publication. The photo was inescapable; a call to arms for the general public to step up to do more to protect refugees and migrants. In the year following the photo’s publication, the number of volunteers at refugee charities increased, the language used to describe refugees became less dehumanizing, and the hashtag #RefugeesWelcome skyrocketed on social media.
So, a mere decade later, how can it be that Keir Starmer’s Labour Government chooses to prioritize political point scoring over protecting the lives of children attempting to reach safety in the UK?
UK–France Migration Agreement
According to the UK Parliament website, France and the UK have been working together since 2019 to limit “small boat crossings” across the English Channel. Since 2023, any person arriving in the UK via an “irregular route,” including the English Channel, has no right to seek asylum in the UK. It is the UK taxpayer who foots the bill. In 2023, the UK government agreed to send 541 million euros to the French authorities between 2023 and 2026 to limit Channel crossings.
To deter migrants, the French police deflate rubber dinghies with knives, even offshore. Once intercepted, they are sent back to the informal camps. Politico reports that, despite the dangers, asylum seekers continue to attempt the journey. In 2024, there were 25% more crossings than in 2023, totaling 37,000 people.
The Calais ‘Jungle’
In 2015, thousands of refugees, the majority fleeing Afghanistan, Eritrea, Sudan, and Syria, to the UK, found themselves in ‘The Jungle’, a wasteland on the northern French coast in the city of Calais. Al Jazeera reports that the makeshift camp housed 9,000 people, at its peak, including an estimated 1,200 unaccompanied children.
In 2016, French authorities under President François Hollande officially closed down the camp, citing the refugees’ terrible living conditions. However, since the closure of ‘The Jungle,’ camps have spread out across Dunkirk and Calais, and living conditions continue to be dire.
Project Play
In June 2025, charity Project Play released a damning report titled “We Want to be Safe: The Impact of Violence Against Children on the UK–France border in 2024”. The report recounts the experiences of children in camps in Dunkirk and Calais in their own words. Project Play is a volunteer-led charity in Northern France that provides opportunities for children in informal camps to play in a secure environment.
Keen to know more about Project Play’s actions, I sat down with Katie Hall, the NGO’s advocacy lead and co-author of “We Want to be Safe.” In the following interview, we dive deeper into Project Play’s report and discuss next steps for the charity.
How does Project Play operate?
“There is a whole ecosystem of organizations operating in Calais. There is a lack of state-funded support and very few big organizations. It’s not like Greece, where UNHCR and UNICEF are present. There have been no formal camps since the destruction of the Calais Jungle in 2016. Therefore, many grassroots organizations operate to plug the gaps in state services.
Project Play is part of a consortium called Calais Appeal. We take our mobile play services to informal camps in Calais and Dunkirk as well as safe-houses and community centers. It all started thanks to two people who came to Calais to work for another organization and realized that kids had nothing to do.
A lot of the kids we work with have no access to formal education so we tailor our structured play sessions to target key skills, but we also emphasize free, child-led play. We bring along a music box, a craft box, and a reading box, and the children can choose what they want to do. We also do circle time where we sing songs and play games. The kids love it. All of the songs are in gibberish, so there are no language barriers.
Our service isn’t just about play — we also offer parental support. Parents who are on the move rarely have a break from their kids and they need time to access adult services. We can watch their kids while they access the services they need.
Creating a space to play means creating a space where kids can be kids — to grow, relax, and learn. To do all the things that kids do in an environment that parents know is supervised, and as safe as possible.”
What has the reception of your report “We Just Want to Play” been like?
“The reception of the report has been really good. We are the only organization in Calais and Dunkirk working with children aged 0 to 18. There’s another amazing organization called Youth Kaleidoscope that works with children aged between 12 and 18, but they focus more on youth work provision. Since 2018, we have been collecting data and hearing the perspectives of children and parents.
We rarely hear children’s perspectives. Kids usually have no way to share their stories. Through reading our report, people have recognized that children are underrepresented. We have heard from other organizations in France and the UK say that the report has been really useful for their advocacy.
The media were also interested. The Guardian wrote a really wonderful piece for us. The public has also taken interest. When we talk to people we know, very few people understand what is going on at the UK–French border. Everyone has fixed ideas about what is happening in the English Channel. It can be so dehumanizing.
People do not realize that when the media reports on police violence that the violence is being used against children as well. Children are also being tear-gassed. UK taxpayers’ money is being used to tear gas children in Northern France! We’ve had many comments on our report saying that the kids’ stories are so important.
Prior to publication, we were afraid of feeding into certain narratives, particularly about young men crossing the English Channel. We advocate for children because we work with them, not because we believe that men are less deserving.”
What do you hope the outcome of the report will be?
“Hopefully our report will be the start of something. It is really sad that we have to do this but we want to rehumanize a situation that is often dehumanized.
At a very basic level, we thought it was wrong to sit on the data we had. We wanted to get it out there. I think we have achieved that, and have done a good job. We are translating “We Just Want to Play” into French and will be launching the French version in September.
We would love to influence policy too. We want to put the issue on the radar of the media and policymakers, both in France and the UK. They are not only human rights issues but also children’s rights issues. A few weeks ago we went to [the UK] Parliament to meet with Lord Dubs. He is working on amendments to the new UK Border Security, Asylum, and Immigration Bill and is very keen to use some of our data.
I would also love to give children a platform to tell their stories. That is challenging because we can’t give kids in Calais a platform as they are trying to cross the [English] Channel—it is almost impossible. When they are in the UK, we don’t stay in touch with them. We have spoken to a few organizations that have networks of children, and we would like to hold an event that enables more stories to be told. Our report only scratches the surface. Every child has their own story.”
If you could send one key message to the French and British public regarding the situation of the children in the camps, what would it be?
“We should question where our humanity has gone in our response [to immigration]. We talk about how we respect human rights in France and the UK, but the situation is horrible. I think we would all oppose our tax money being used to tear gas children.
The challenge is that we need a Europe-wide response. People struggle to see solutions, but our response should be human-focused rather than solution-focused. We are losing sight of the fact that these are people just like you and me.
The policies we are pursuing are actively harming the most vulnerable. The fact that more children were killed on the UK–France border last year than the previous four years combined should surely demonstrate that we are on the wrong path.”
What can our readers do to support your work at Project Play?
“There are many things Spheres of Influence readers could do to support us. We are currently running a match-funding campaign. An amazing organization called Outdoor Play and Learning will double all of our donations up to 20,000 [British] pounds (26,910.60 USD). Readers could donate or organize a fundraiser. The theme of our match-funding campaign is “Play it Forward”, so we encourage you to do something playful!
The vast majority of organizations in Calais are small, grassroots, and volunteer-led. We rely on public money. If we don’t get the support we need, we will have to stop running our services. If we have to go out of business, we would want it to be because there is no longer a need for us, not because there is no longer enough money.
Following and sharing our posts on social media also helps us. I would also encourage everyone to learn more about the context. It is a nuanced situation, but it isn’t complicated. We can all get fatigued reading the news, but taking time to engage with the story and educating yourself about what is happening at other border crossings is very important.
Viewing the situation in Calais as an isolated issue isn’t helpful because ultimately countries need to work together to introduce human-rights-based approaches to migration.”
Readers can follow Project Play on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Edited by Khushi Mehta
