Record of Hope announces the release of its first Record, ‘Calais at the Crossroads’

Bansky, ‘Steve Jobs’, The Jungle, Calais. Banksy commented: “We’re often led to believe migration is a drain on the country’s resources but Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian migrant. Apple is the world’s most profitable company, it pays over $7bn (£4.6bn) a year in taxes – and it only exists because they allowed in a young man from Homs.”

The Guardian, 11 Dec 2015

by Joe Peloquin, March 4, 2018

Going to Calais in the Summer of 2016 was a significant experience for me, one that taught me a great deal about my capacity to be touched by the suffering of others, and then to do something about it. Even more, it showed me just what ordinary people are capable of when they come together in the service of something much bigger than themselves. Most of all, it left me with the deep, soul-searing impression that what I saw in Calais, in the ‘Warehouse’ and the floods of volunteers that passed through it, was a movement of creative care that desperately needed to be shared, talked about and, dare I say, replicated.

This record is a small contribution towards that end.

It began with the excitement of the early days when Robert and I were recording audio interviews in the evening hours on the Agents of Change course in Germany, continuing with the many international Skype conversations after we had each returned to our separate countries, the countless hours of transcribing, editing and carving out what would eventually make its way into the Record, the last weeks of piecing together and revising the final document.

Working on Record of Hope has, at times, been an agonizing process. At others, it has felt like taking a stride into a new or forgotten landscape, with all of the joy, wonder and sense of discovery that comes with that. The fact that we are both still here with a finished Record to share with the world is either a testament to our relationship, or to the strength of what we are attempting to offer. As Robert said many times in the early weeks, “what we are doing has strong legs”.

Still, I can’t know. The test of the thing is how it is received, what it touches in those who read it, what they then go on to do with what is awakened in them.

Download and read Calais At The Crossroads

Joe Peloquin was born in Rhode Island, on the east coast of the United States. He has spent the majority of the last five years either on meditation retreat or actively engaged on grassroots ecological and humanitarian projects in France, Israel/Palestine and India. He joined Record of Hope in its earliest phase as both collaborator and the ‘voice’ in the first Record.