After a quietish summer we have had a very busy Autumn:

• Feeding families in partnership with La Cimade in Beziers and
  Carcasonne. We are currently giving food parcels and a little
  cash to in excess of 130 individuals every month.

• Established a stockage in Carcasonne to store donated items
  prior to distribution to families in need.

• Providing ongoing support to families via 100 pour un Toit Vallée
  d’Orb

• Ongoing expenses related to travel for tribunals in Paris, medical emergencies and the like both in Béziers and Carcasonne.
  

• Subsidised Rentrée expenses for 50+ kids in Béziers and 60 in
  Carcasonne.
• Monthly support to Stop Racism in Pezenas and also to Mineurs
  non Accompagnés in Bédarieux.
• Repurposed furniture from people leaving the area for use by families with the assistance of our charity partners Adages, La Cimade and 100 pour un toit.
  The biggest change this Autumn has been the arrival of the Falaha family from Homs via Lebanon. Arriving under the aegis of Couloires
  Humanitaires, the family Lamea, Amoun, Sidra, Muhammed and Baby Ali are now lodging in Montagnac. They are busy learning French and finally Baby Ali is starting to get the medical support he desperately needs. We are supporting the family both to access services and also financially while their Cartes de Séjour work their way through the French system.

Still to come in 2024

• Next Wednesday we are running the Christmas party for 66 kids at La Cimade in Béziers and on Friday will be delivering a large
  van load of donated warm clothes, sleeping bags and blankets to Vintimille for migrants sleeping under bridges.

  Of course, all of this costs money and we have run a number of appeals and fundraising events since the summer.

  • There was a quiz in Pezenas in October and one in Caunes Minervois in November.
  • Hannah’s Autumn clothes sale was also hugely successful in helping us raise funds.
  • We painted faces at the Cracker Fair.
  • We held a musical evening at Siran in October.
  • Last weekend we held our 3 rd Christmas concert at Chateau Abbaye de Cassan with O’Sisters.

Dates for your diary 2025:

• The next quiz in Pezenas is booked in for 29 th January so please keep the date.

• There is also a Burn’s night supper on 25 th January in Pépieux.

We hope to see you at these and our many other events next year.
The key drivers of all our activities however are our monthly
donors along with those that support us with ad-hoc payments
through the year. We really could not manage without this steady
source of income.

Sadly, we lost one of our key supporters from the Aude group this year; Theresa Dommett was taken from us far too soon after an illness. Theresa was a real driver for us and our deepest sympathies are with her
husband Chris. Chris has asked that anyone wanting to make donations to remember Theresa and commemorate her life, do so to LSR. Thank you Chris.

None of this could have been achieved without the hard work and support of our volunteers for which we thank you. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank a few external groups for their support :
Seigneurie de Peyrat, Cassan, Chateau St Jacques d’Albas and the Mairie de Pezenas for allowing us to host events on their premises, Languedoc Property Finders in Pezenas for their sponsorship, Grange De
Bouys, Sharon Townend, Ken & Alison, O’Sisters, the Smokey Notes, l’Oeno Band, Hannah and Steve Waters, Terre Mere, All Saints Anglican church and most of all yourselves for your unwavering support.
Thank you!

Peter
Président LSR

PS: There is still time to get last minute donations into us by the end of the year so you can reclaim 66% against your next year’s tax bill.

Please go to our website dedicated page or send any cheques to LSR c/o 10 Ave de Mougeres, Caux 34720.

Thanks!

A good day yesterday spent sorting out donated clothing. Thanks to those that have donated and to the team for their massive efforts. We're still looking for blankets and warm men's clothing and the LSR pantry needs food too.

Contact us at [email protected] or leave us a message here if you have something to donate.

Ali has arrived ! And he brought his family !

It has been a long campaign but Baby Ali and his family have finally arrived in France. They came legally with French visas that give them the right to apply for refugee status and give access to medical care for Ali immediately. It was the wonderful people at the Sant’Egidio association that made it possible from the Lebanon side. Wendela and I went to meet them at the airport in Paris last Tuesday and returned with them by train on Thursday. They are now settling into a small apartment being provided by LSR and one of our stalwart members. The family will continue to need our help (logistical, administrative and financial) for some time as they work through the process of regularization in France.

Ali has some very big problems to deal with but he has a very sweet disposition and is fortunate in having a very loving family devoted to his welfare. LSR will continue to contribute to that support and any individuals wishing to contribute in any way are invited to contact me directly.

Gary Kilmer

LSR are urgently looking for accommodation and a child's wheelchair for a Syrian family arriving from the Lebanon in the second half of September:

The Falaha family of 5 have finally got approval to come to France and seek asylum. Their baby son, Ali has cerebral palsy and other birth defects as a result of oxygen starvation at birth. Following a long campaign by a Gary Kilmer & Wendela Kilmer they will be arriving at some point in the 2nd half of September: LSR have committed to house and care for the family until their asylum claim is approved.

If you have any accommodation (free or otherwise) or a wheelchair to offer please get in touch with us at [email protected]. Thank you!

LSR a brief review of the year to date
We have had a very busy year so far at LSR:

Fundraising
We managed to participate in 4 fundraisers so far this year; 2 quizzes, a clothes sale in conjunction with Hannah (thanks very much Hannah!) and finally a musical afternoon at Seigneurie de Peyrat. Thanks to all of you that attended/took part. On top of these fundraisers, we have the regular contributions from people such as yourself. These are the life blood of LSR and allow us to make some of the longer-term commitments you see below. If you haven’t signed up yet and want to support us please go to our website  and go to the donate page

Service delivery
We have continued with our feeding and housing programs. Every 2 weeks we provide bags of food and a little cash to families with no other means of support. This averages out at around 30-35 people in Beziers. Additionally, our sister organisation in the Aude supports around 100 people once a month in Caracasonne.
Through our partners at Cent pour un Toit Vallée d’Orb we provide the equivalent of the rent for an apartment for one of the families they house.
On top of these on-going core commitments there are series of ad hoc service and funding commitments we make through the year both to organisations and to individuals where we often act as the doner of last resort. This year these have included Théthé and her 4 children when her husband passed away, the ALHAMKA family who have had their support stopped while they need to reapply for settlement and Abdouleh who was going to lose his accomodation while waiting for his final asylum confirmation.
Finally there is the work we do with partner organisations mainly around the region ; These range from Stop Racisme in Pezenas where we helped fund 2 young men who had received OQTF(ordre de quitter le territoire francais) and have now both got jobs, to AMI in Bédarieux where we provide 2 Bangladeshi kids with 50€ pocket money every month. We also pass on a lot of donated materiel such as blankets and furniture to a variety of organisations- Samu Sociale in Montpellier, La
Cimade in Beziers, AMIC and Adages in Clermont amongst others.
Outside of the region we sent money to Roots in Calais and a group looking after homeless migrant children in Paris and have other projects in hand.

Looking forward
Summer is a quieter time for us but aside from the food deliveries etc we will be launching our
annual Rentrée appeal later this month. This covers a contribution towards the cost of equipping
the kids from La Cimade with what they need to attend school in September. The pantry still
needs food donations I can provide a list of drop off points. We will be doing another quiz in
October and hopefully our Christmas concert at Cassan in December. As usual all our activities
are covered in full on www.languedocsolidarite.com
Nobody knows what the current political changes will bring but we only see it making things even harder for those fleeing war and persecution and increase the demand for what we provide.
Thank you all for your ongoing support.

Like every year, St. Patrick's Day was celebrated in good spirits to benefit LSR Haute Vallée de l'Aude.

Pézenas 20 February 2024 at 19.00. LE QUIZ is back better than ever ! Our quiz masters will challenge you once again with this fun, interactive quiz! Teams of 6 will be put through their paces with rounds on music,general knowledge, Lidl offers and more! Great prizes to be won.
Questions are in French and English – so you will need to put your heads together with your French or Anglophone chums to create a winning team!
Wine and cheese will be available on the night.

For reservations, please click here or mail us at  [email protected]

  Migrant'scène 2023, Cimade Festival

from 18 November to 9 December 

More than 100 towns in mainland France and overseas will be hosting Migrant'scène events on the theme of Freedom! In equality and solidarity.
As they do every year, hundreds of volunteers throughout France are involved in creating, programming and organising the Migrant'scène 
festival, which takes different forms in different towns.

Over the course of a day, a weekend or a week, with a meal, a film,
an exhibition or a show - but always TOGETHER. 
The local editions of the festival are rich and varied:

Région Languedoc Roussillon

LSR Pézenas, Saturday 18 november 2023, LE QUIZ is back ! 

Better than ever! Our quiz masters will challenge you  with this fun, interactive quiz! Teams will be put through their paces with rounds on art, music, food and drink, current affairs. Great prizes to be won. Dont worry if you’re on your own or don’t have enough for a team, the LSR Matchmakers© are there to create the perfect blend of knowledge, language and personality.

Questions are in French and English – so you will need to put your heads together with your French or Anglophone chums to create a winning team!

Rendez-vous 18.30

Foyer des Campagne, 10 pl. Frédéric Mistral, 34120 Pezenas.

Wine and cheese will be available on the night but for cheese we prefer you to reserve. Any queries please get in touch with us at [email protected]

LSR's Annual General Meeting will be held on Saturday 4 November at 2.30pm in Caux at the Médiathèque (13 Rue Jules Ferry, Caux 34720 ).

We will review our activities and those of our partners, and finish the afternoon with a glass of wine. If you wish, you can bring something to share and, of course, there will be a dry food collection to support our work with refugees.

Operation Vélos II

Having a bike can make a real difference to the lives of refugees giving them autonomy and the ability to get around the towns where they live without having to pay. We launched an appeal at the end of September to try and find 20 or so bikes and within 2 weeks we were offered 50! Thanks everyone for your support we are getting round to everyone as fast as we can and have already delivered bikes to La Cimade in Beziers , to the MNA (Mineurs non-accompagné) in Pézenas, and to LSR Aude in Carcassonne.

Last minute info !

We heard today that Amadou’s future had already been decided in his absence and without counsel on the 13th December. His appeal has been rejected and the OQTF stands. I’m not sure what happens next for this young man but it is not good news. It appears there has been a hardening around residency rules of late; where before after living responsably and being imbedded in a community for 5 years meant that “régularisation” was highly likely, now it appears no longer to be the case. This is going to be hugely problematic moving forward.

Amadou, a young Guinean migrant is threatened with an OQTF (obligation to leave French territory).

Last August,we asked you to sign a petition to support the appeal against Amadou's OQTF. Amadou's hearing takes place on Tuesday 10 January in Montpellier. Maître Ruffel, who is handling the case, thinks the presence of many supporters of Amadou could perhaps influence the decision of the Court!
If you have a few hours to spare on Tuesday, this is your chance to try and make a difference and change a young man's life.