Our vans are an essential, but expensive, part of our work. Over the past few weeks, we have found ourselves in an extremely precarious and worrying situation as we face multiplying problems with our only van, the Sprinter. In the same moment an opportunity has arisen to purchase a van which would be perfect for our food and water projects. Our financial situation remains touch-and-go; we have no reserves to dip into for this purchase. To secure our new van, we need to raise 5,000 euros by next week. If we miss this deadline, the van will be sold to another buyer.

To ensure the smooth running of our projects, we need two vans: one for everyday water distributions, and another for our food project. This includes collecting stocks from a food bank in Lille and distributing food directly to living sites, ensuring people on the move have the autonomy to prepare their own meals. However, due to ongoing financial difficulties we have only had one van since summer 2024. Thanks to the solidarity of other organisations, we have managed to keep our projects alive despite having only one van. It's been hard, but we’ve managed.

But now, our van situation is becoming increasingly precarious. Last week, we faced serious problems with our only van, which had to spend multiple days at the garage for repairs. This left us scrambling to borrow vans from different associations each day to do our water drop, loading and unloading our water tank setup between different borrowed vans, which ultimately slowed down our distribution and left water tanks sitting empty. When we weren’t able to find a van to borrow, we had to distribute limited stocks of bottled water from a car to ensure people did not go without clean drinking water.

With van problems and costly repairs mounting, we are becoming increasingly worried that our van could break down completely. If this were to happen, continuing our water project in our current capacity would be unfeasible, with our ability to facilitate reliable water access to people on the move greatly impacted.

We really need this second van to avoid the potential of serious disruption to our projects and ensure we can continue supporting displaced communities facing severe food and water insecurity.

Solidarity groups like CFC rely heavily on donations from individual supporters to keep going. Please show your solidarity, give what you can, and share this crowdfunder widely. We need everyone’s help to raise the necessary funds and secure our new van!