Hello and welcome to my website

In its current edition my website is dedicated to Making Refuge, an invitation to volunteer in Calais while forming a temporary community, guided by the Buddhist five precepts.

Making Refuge 2025

8-21 January 2025

The 2025 retreat will be the second time Making Refuge is offered. This retreat form came about because in 2023 I received seed money that enabled me to bring together three areas of interest I have been exploring for a while:

  1. Our collective response to climate-change, refugees and socioeconomic displacement.
  2. The experience of living in the Global North, guided by the five precepts
  3. The economy of flow

Volunteering in Calais

Volunteering in Calais is an opportunity to offer vital support to human-beings whose lives were derailed by climate change, limited access to resources and dangerous living conditions.  Volunteering in Calais is also an opportunity to explore skillful compassion: how can we care for people whose needs are so complex while also taking care of our own well-being and the well-being of fellow volunteers.

“Looking after oneself, one looks after others. Looking after others, one looks after oneself.”

SN 47.19 The Bamboo Acrobat, translated from Pali by Andrew Zelenski

“Climate change is the defining crisis of our time and its impacts are unevenly weighted against the world’s most vulnerable people. Displaced and stateless people are among those in greatest need of protection.”

Andrew Harper, UNHCR Special Advisor on Climate Action, 30 November 2020

About Making Refuge

Making Refuge is an opportunity to volunteer in Calais with Refugee Community Kitchen, with the support of like-minded people. The hope is that the shared accommodation, meditation practice and discussions will support volunteers and enrich the experience of volunteering in Calais.

Our work day, volunteering in the RCK kitchen, will start around 9 AM. This allows us time to begin the day with silent meditation and breakfast, before going to ‘work’.

We will eat lunch at the kitchen and take turns making dinner back in our shared accommodation.

We will have time in the evenings for discussions and reflections, and end the day with a meditation.

The days will start and end with periods of ennobling silence.  Silence will start after the evening meal and end half way through breakfast.

Reflections by Making Refuge 2024 community members:

About Volunteering with RCK

Daily tasks for short-term RCK volunteers include vegetable preparation and dish washing.  Longer term volunteers tend to get involved with cooking and coordinating the day’s tasks.  There is suitable work for all ages and energy levels. 

RCK volunteers work in a collaborative way.  Every morning, during the morning check-in, the day’s prep-lead lets everybody know what the tasks for the day are and volunteers take up tasks they feel moved to do.  Whatever your contribution, by the end of the day delicious food is cooked, the distribution van is out on delivery and the kitchen is clean, ready for the next day.  Because of this collaborative approach volunteering with RCK is an opportunity to explore work as a collective effort.

Making Refuge and The Buddhist Five Precepts

Making Refuge is underpinned by the understanding that being the change we wish to see in the world calls on us to bring the same level of care to all our relationships.  To facilitate this intention the community we create together will be guided by the five precepts.

Committing to the Buddhist five precepts training will help us establish a community that is based on trust, respect and awareness.

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine we undertake the training:

  1. To refrain from harming living beings
  2. To refrain from taking that which is not freely offered
  3. To refrain from harmful expressions of sensuality
  4. To refrain from harmful speech
  5. To refrain from taking substances that cloud the mind

By following the five lay precepts we offer safety to all.  By creating the conditions of safety for all we create the conditions of unlimited safety for ourselves. 

You may wish to listen to Taking Refuges and Precepts, a 30 minutes talk by Jill Shepherd.

Dates & Registration

Making Refuge 2025. Arrival: 8 January, departure: 21 January.

Please register to book your place.

If you are interested in joining for part of Making Refuge please use the contact form to let me know your availability. I will allocate places according to how the dates work with other people that are coming for a shorter duration.

You are invited to support Making Refuge by making a donation.

Accommodation

All room are twin rooms (no single rooms available).

Funding and Costs

Making Refuge is an exploration of the economy of flow, the idea of sharing financial resources according to need.

The January 2024 retreat was funded by existing seed money.  Rather than paying toward the 2024 retreat participants were invited to make a contribution towards the Making Refuge 2025 retreat.

You will also be invited to contribute toward my livelihood, to enable me to continue organising Making Refuge retreats in the future.

You will need to make your own travel arrangements.

You are invited to support Making Refuge by making a donation.

Unused contributions will be offered to SanghaSeva.

Deposit

I ask that you to pay a £90 deposit when you register as a way of confirming your commitment to participating in this retreat. 

  • If you attend, the deposit will be refunded at the end of the retreat. 
  • If you book a place but do not participate the deposit will not be refunded.

Registration

Please use the registration form to book Making Refuge 2025.

If you are interested in joining Making Refuge for a shorter retreat please use the contact form to let me know your availability. I will allocate places according to how the dates work with other people that are coming for a shorter duration.

About me (in the Making Refuge context)

I first went to Calais on a SanghaSeva retreat in May 2022. I was deeply moved by my experience and have been back four times since then. I found that my Buddhist Insight Meditation practice, as taught at Gaia House, helped me turn towards the experience with a healthy curiosity.

In organising Making Refuge, my intention is to create a space for people that wish to volunteer in Calais while having the opportunity to process the experience with like-minded people, supported by the Buddhist five precepts and meditation.

In the context of Making Refuge my role is to offer a practical holding of the framework. If needed, I am happy to offer meditation instructions during the morning and evening practice periods. This means Making Refuge is suitable for beginners to meditation.