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Massachusetts Nurse On Volunteering With Migrants

Jennifer Silverstone is a nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital and she’s the mother of two young children.

When she saw the photograph of the young Syrian boy who drowned while trying to make it to Greece with his family, she started thinking about how her nursing skills could help the migrants.

She raised money for supplies and wound up in Western France with two other local volunteers, Sami Abdallah and Heidi Sleiman. Migrants head there, to camps in Calais and Dunkirk, in the hopes of getting into the UK via the Channel Tunnel.

Silverstone described the deplorable conditions that the migrants endure to Here & Now’s Peter O’Dowd.

Then, we check in with immigration expert Demetrios Papademetriou, who explains what happens to migrants like the ones Silverstone met if they are able to make it to the UK.

Guests

  • Jennifer Silverstone, nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital.
  • Demetrios G. Papademetriou, president emeritus of the Migration Policy Institute.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Jennifer Silverstone (R) volunteered at a French refugee camp this year. She told us about her experience. (Courtesy Jennifer Silverstone)
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Jennifer Silverstone (R) volunteered at a French refugee camp this year. She told us about her experience. (Courtesy Jennifer Silverstone)