In Conversation with Elly Walters - Part II
Fiona McNally and Anna Cutler
Elly Walters graduated with a BA in MML (French) in July 2020. She is now reading for an MSt in Women's Studies at Wadham College, Oxford.
Credit: Elly Walters
PART II
You took the initiative to volunteer during your Year Abroad which is really commendable. What was your role in helping the CEDRE Secours Catholique achieve their aims as an organisation?
Elly:
As with the vast majority of my ‘initiatives’, I approached the CEDRE following the wonderful guidance and inspiration of Hugo (my Director of Studies)! I spent my Year Abroad in Paris where I studied at the École Normale Supérieure and volunteered a few days a week at the CEDRE (‘Centre d’entraide dédié aux personnes exilées’). The CEDRE is a reception centre on the border to Aubervilliers which supports exiled people, asylum seekers, and refugees. My volunteer work focused on holding one-to-one interviews with individuals to discuss concerns that ranged from appealing rejections of state protection, to accessing food, clothes, shelter, and healthcare. This usually involved liaising with NGOs across Paris by telephone and writing letters to government bodies on behalf of the CEDRE. I presented weekly on the procedure to claim asylum in France and did a lot of English interpreting during morning announcements, meetings, and presentations. The CEDRE not only offers information and advice for exiled people, but it also works very hard to create a kind and welcoming place where people can gather in the daytime for coffee and warmth. The Centre also runs classes in French, yoga, cooking, to give people an opportunity to develop their skills, be in good company, and take a break. It is a really, really wonderful place to be and even just speaking about it is making me want to go back.
École Normale Supérieure - Snowy Main Court
Credit: Elly Walters
Would you say that you had that one particular experience or instance from your time there which you could pick out that marked you?
Elly:
I went to a court case led by ten charity organisations in Paris against OFII (‘Office Française de l’Immigration et de l’Intégration’), the French immigration office. To put it simply, the ten organisations had taken the authorities to court because the procedure to claim asylum was (and still is) so inaccessible. To start the process, you had to call a number that costs by the minute. And it wasn't as if you’d call and get through straight away; the phone would ring for 45 minutes, then cut out, and you'd have to call again. Sometimes it would take weeks for people to finally speak to someone at OFII. For many asylum seekers it is difficult to afford food and shelter, particularly since it is illegal for them to work, so calling the OFII number with its per-minute fees is often quite literally not an option. This is just one way that OFII tries to deter people from trying to seek asylum, which in itself is a very long, complex, and unforgiving process.
Another thing that struck me was the amount of people receiving OQTFs (‘Obligation de quitter la territoire française’), which is an order to leave France. If your application for asylum is rejected twice, you get sent an OQTF. The government sends the asylum seeker a letter that demands that they leave, explaining that they’ll be looked after by another country’s authorities. With this letter they send a plane ticket; I remember seeing government-issued tickets to Spain, Holland, Italy. I met some people who had boarded the plane and later returned to France, having not received the promised support abroad. I met others who had refused to get on the flight in the first place. Usually we could direct people to NGOs or pro bono lawyers, but there was very little we could do at the CEDRE with an OQTF, which was always hard.
After twenty years of being told about the historic greatness of the British Empire, working at the CEDRE also taught me a lot about British colonialism, and the ways in which I was implicated in Britain’s past and present atrocities. As the only volunteer speaking English as a first language, I often worked closely with those asylum seekers who preferred to speak English rather than French. I started to think about how English had become so widespread in Afghanistan, in Bangladesh, and why I was only thinking about this in my twenties. It made me realise how much British colonialism ‒ with its enslavement of colonised people and its impositions on their languages, cultures, faiths, and histories ‒ has been so carefully left out of our own curriculums and popular history. Another experience that marked me happened with a neighbour in the student residence I lived in. When I first met her, I introduced myself and said I was from the UK. She was from Yemen, and I asked her how long it took her to travel to Paris. She replied, “About the same amount of time it took the UK to send bombs to Yemen”. The most shameful thing was that I could not pinpoint this event in time or politics. It was in 2015 that the UK began committing war crimes against Yemen, and I’d been completely oblivious.
Anna:
I feel in my experience as well, when we discussed slavery in school, the focus was on the abolition, therefore the responsibility Britain has for the lives that were lost and the pain that was caused was not addressed.
Fiona:
I think you’re right in saying that our education system holds a lot of responsibility for ignoring these issues.
You’ve kind of answered our next question about what aid was in place for those with language barriers; I was originally more thinking in practical terms, like interpreting, so it’s so interesting to see how else your language and heritage affects you on your Year Abroad.
Student Minds Cambridge Freshers Stall
Credit: Elly Walters
Elly:
When I first looked at volunteering, I didn’t think the languages I knew would be enough. But I learnt at the CEDRE that any way you communicate is valuable. There were so many instances where being a native English speaker was helpful and useful, especially when translating or interpreting. At the same time, I spoke a lot of French with volunteers and refugees, and some days even my Spanish would come in handy. My friend volunteered for an organisation similar to the CEDRE, and sometimes she was able to use her Russian to communicate. Several volunteers at the CEDRE spoke Bengali and/ or Arabic, which was a wonderful gift, but please do remember that any language(s) you can offer are more than enough! It’s so powerful to be able to help in any small way, whether you’re speaking someone’s native language or a language that you share.
Anna:
That's a beautiful way to look at languages, and I think it is important to remind people that the language you're learning, no matter which one, will be useful and there is a way to help people with it.
Elly:
Also, it may sound like I spoke fluently and confidently in French, but I definitely did not. I overthought my phrasing and would end up making a mess of simple sentences like, ‘I’ll have a croissant please’. At the CEDRE, there was no time or space to overthink; I had to communicate unflinchingly in the best way I could (and then try not to dwell on my mistakes later!).
Fiona:
I have a lot of issues around the idea of fluency; I don't really believe in it. For me, it’s all about communication and bridging that gap, and that’s what your work was all about. It’s such important work and you've really inspired me, I'd love to be able to do something like this!
La Tour Eiffel
Credit: Elly Walters
What advice would you give to someone who would like to volunteer in France?
Elly:
Please do if you can! It is such important work. Here’s just a small list of organisations you could contact if you would like to volunteer in Paris/ France and, if you have any questions at all about volunteering on your Year Abroad, please feel free to get in touch with me!
And I recommend listening to The Guilty Feminist Calais Refugee Special, all about volunteering with exiled people in France!
To get in contact with Elly, please contact the CLC (cambridgelanguagecollective@mmll.cam.ac.uk) and we will put you in touch!
Read Part I of the Interview here
