It started on the first of February 2016 with a Facebook message from James Pearce that read:
‘If anybody has any friends who live in the jungle who they can vouch for, then please add them to this group so we can start to build up a group of recipients for phone credit. Likewise, if you have friends sympathetic to the cause who may be willing to donate, then please add them too. Thank you.’
It’s been three years since James reached out to his Facebook friends, asking them to consider adding their own friends to a new group he’d created called Phone Credit for Refugees. There were no long-term plans, no well thought out goals, only the inescapable sense that something somehow must be done.
James wanted to help the handful of refugees that he’d come to know personally in the Jungle, and he hoped that by asking his friends to add more people to the group, he’d be able to build up a network of donors to help those people in need. Now three years on – and with more than 58,000 members – the number of people we’ve reached has exceeded everything James could have imagined when he wrote that first post.
You have donated more than £780,000 to help support refugees in need all over the world - that’s 45,000 individual top-ups. And there are so many more people out there who need our help, and there is so much more we want to do!
But for now – on our third birthday – we’d like to celebrate everything we’ve achieved together. So, from our family to yours: thank you to all of you for your continued love, support, and solidarity. And as for the difference you are making to people’s lives, no-one can say it better than our recipients themselves…
“It’s been almost 51 months for being detained inside Balikpapan Detention center. Today is the 3rd birthday of this group and I’m really very thankful for the dear admins for supporting us and provided phone credit. Thanks billions for your great efforts, supports, Love dear Donors. Best wishes for all of you guys.”
“You are the owners of the hearts of mercy, Jape and your friends in the group. Thank you for being in this world. Words of thanks are unable to express in front of your humanity and ethics. Thank you.”
“I want to talk about my story, it carries the burden of suffering, which is long to explain. All I can say is that your group has reassured us that in this world there are still honourable people who work for humanity only. You Jape and your friends were an example of honour, integrity and humanity. Thank you with all our hearts.”
“Phone Credit for Refugees has been supportive to me to be able to used the top-up to stay in touch with family members and monitor the current insecurity of my country, affairs, political and the governances of the nation. I say a big thank you for this organisation, for their full support and assistance as a refugee and displaced person.Thank you and God blessed.”
“We wish you success and progress. And thank you from every refugee you were the reason for his contact with his family.”
“I am displaced to the camps of oppression and displacement, displaced by the destruction and war that took place in my beautiful country. This is Syria now. Like every displaced person and refugee in this cruel oppressive world, I suffer the cold of winter, the heat of summer and the distance from my parents and homelands. But I come to a glimmer of hope from a beautiful group I met. By the queue they help me with the monthly credit. Every month my mother and I trust in it and the providers of this credit have done something to mitigate the pain of displacement.”