Turn off London’s biggest shopping streets, push past the fashionable crowds filling the narrow streets of Soho, and you’ll come to a small, bright shop on a corner. With its glass walls, young staff and minimalist display, it could be any of pop-up shops that bloom around this part of town. But there’s a difference. The items on display on the white table in the middle of the room include lifejackets and silvery emergency blankets. The staff are unpaid volunteers. Welcome to Choose Love, where you can come in and shop as much as you want, but not take a single thing with you.
“We launched on Black Friday,” says Tom Steadman, head of communications at Help Refugees, which runs the shop. “We wanted to introduce a new way for people to shop, and do something a little bit different this winter.” Help Refugees works in conflict zones where aid agencies have been active for years, such as Iraq and Syria, but it stands out among other aid charities for its focus on Europe. Founded just two years ago, after a group of friends managed to raise £56,000 during the refugee crisis, Help Refugees operates in the Greek islands, Serbia, Italy and Calais. Like many of the senior members of the organisation, Steadman is still in his early twenties.
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