Throughout this wonderful weekend where we celebrated Palestinian people and culture, we remained focused on solidarity and the need to end complicity with the genocide by the UK government.
From the opening speech from Alexi Diamond, Green Party councillor on Sheffield City Council and long term supporter of Palestine liberation, to the closing Fun Run, this year was a perfect mix of sadness at the suffering, anger at the terror of the genocide and occupation, and joy in our community and solidarity.
Thank you everyone who has taken part.
Day 1 – a summary in pictures
Day 2 – a summary in pictures
The BIG SING
As the event comes to a close we were privileged to be able to connect to Gaza and speak to Habiba who spoke of the impact on her life and reams and then people from seven Sheffield choirs sang to Gaza live on zoom.
As the summer heat ebbs on Saturday, we will be starting our evening programme.
First up , at 6pm, will be our community meal, and we are looking forward to seeing lots of you relax on the grass outside Meersbrook Hall with some delicious Palestinian food.
We will be following this with a magnificent lantern procession: watermelon lanterns made in local community groups over the past couple of weeks and some made on Saturday afternoon in the craft tents.
They will be lit up in the woods and ready to welcome the more solemn and silent torchlight procession at 8.15pm. Led by Mushier Al Farra, we will do a single circuit of the park and hang our doves and cranes and lay our candles at the solidarity tree.
We will then ask you to join us in the Palestine Voices Tent (crossing the course carefully to avoid getting in the way of runners) for an evening of poetry from Sheffield Writers for Palestine and music. We are still hoping Dalya can be with us and be joined with Tadhamon!
We are really lucky to have so many great local businesses in Sheffield who have supported our event. And also thanks to Migration Matters Festival who have included us in their event!
Once agai , at about 8.15 on the Saturday night of small park BIG RUN, we will be remembering all those who have died in the genocide in Gaza. We will walk a single circuit of the park with a lit flame that will be passed between Palestinian generations. And we will, as last year, march to a single drum beat.
At the end of a circuit we will gather by the solidarity tree and lay down our candles and hang our cranes and doves. Please feel free to write messages of hope and solidarity and love.
(This will be an emotional part of our 24 hours and you may be deep in thought and feeling BUT please do take care when crossing the corse that there are no runners approaching)
Our 24 hour festival only works if we have enough help to run it. We have six 24 hour runners and other besides running throughout the day and night.
Marshals play a key role in ensuring they run safely. Can you help? The picture below is th latest psotion at the tim of publishing and we will up[date periodically. You can see the times when need more marshals.
Register to marshal here. If you have already, why not log back in and add an additional time when we are short – indicated in red in the left hand column.
Georgina is going to attempt to walk continuously for 24 hours around the small park BIG RUN course – 21-22 June. We asked her why and it became quickly clear her feelings and commitment run deep.
Georgina in the Palestinian Central Highlands – in the region described as the “Wilderness of Bethlehem”
Why you are doing this run?
In the summer of 2023 I lived in Hebron in the West Bank of Palestine volunteering teaching English, I witnessed the occupation first hand and the experience changed my life. I wanted to do everything I could to bring change and attention to this oppression. On my recent visit this year, I saw how much worse life had become for people in the West Bank. I am walking for the whole 24 hours as a form of protest to highlight the extreme conditions Palestinians in Gaza have to endure under the current Israeli bombardment of their home and also the countless miles Palestinians have walked due to displacement since 1947.
What do you hope to achieve?
I hope to raise as much money as I can so that the Sheffield Palestine Cultural Exchange charity can continue to do their incredible work. I also hope that pushing my body to the extremes will draw attention and make people see how urgent it is that our government needs to act now to stop the suffering and murder of Palestinians.
Your feelings on Palestine and any other message?
Many Palestinians have told me that seeing the protests and solidarity around the world has given them hope and they feel seen. Showing up and speaking out is incredibly important and that effort is appreciated.
Palestine has a deep soul within the land which you can feel with every step, supporting a beautiful and rich heritage, loved and protected by the most generous and kind people. It must not be erased.
I look forward to meeting you and the team and everyone taking part! It really is wonderful to see my city showing support and solidarity. Best Wishes from Georgina.
On Sunday, June 22nd, we will be hosting a Palestinian breakfast with spBR organisers Jawad and Jonny, joined by Ruba, who is from the West Bank.
He will be leading a discussion on ‘Sumud’ – an all-encompassing term which refers to the resilience and steadfastness of Palestinian people.
But it is more than simply a reference term. It has become an emblem of resistance and for many an integral part of how they live their life.
Below, Mustafa, who visited Sheffield in 2006 as a part of the Al Asria dance tour describes what Sumud means to him.
Whilst he is now safe in Norway his family, from Jabalia refugee camp in North Gaza, are suffering the most terrible ordeal.
Please join us at 10 am on Sunday 22nd June in the Palestine Voices Tent outside Meersbrook Hall for breakfast and discussion.
What Sumud (صمود) truly means for me, Mustafa Awad
Sumud means standing tall when everything is collapsing around you.
It means not giving up even after losing your cousin, your family, your home — everything.
It means crying every night, having nightmares, feeling broken, but refusing to be defeated.
Sumud is when your family calls and tells you they have no food — and even though your heart is shattered, you still speak out, you still fight.
It’s when your mother, brothers, and sisters are starving, living without water or electricity, and the world just watches — but you still believe in justice.
Sumud is saying “I will never bow my head.”
It’s screaming to the world that what’s happening is genocide — and you will never be silent.
It’s being angry and hurt, but still strong. It’s losing family and still saying, “If I lose more, I will never give up.”
Sumud is refusing to be dehumanised. It’s shouting the truth when others stay silent. It’s saying loudly: “I have the right to be angry, I have the right to say ‘fxxk occupation’, and I have the right to never surrender.”
Sumud is when you teach your children to grow up strong — to never forget the uncles and aunts who were slaughtered on live TV while the world did nothing.
It’s keeping their memory alive, turning pain into strength.
It’s being tired, heartbroken, full of rage — but saying with pride:
“We were born strong. We will die strong. Nothing will break us”
Play is one of the themes of this year’s ‘small Park BIG RUN’. Play is an important part of discovery, socialisation and wellbeing in our formative years. Many of us continue to engage in play in various forms as adults because it continues to provide for us in the same way when as children playing was so important. Play is about fun, informality, something which isn’t about duty or necessity, an activity which nourishes us and our relationships.
3-3 Palestine is a simple football activity open to anyone registered for SPBR – all ages and no previous football experience needed! Come and find the “3-3 Palestine” volunteers on the day, take the challenge as you complete the SPBR course and get a certificate and badge.
Palestinian women’s football team Diyar posing for photos with the Sheffield Lord Mayor Anne Murphy at the inaugural ‘small park BIG RUN’ in 2017.
Play can take many forms such as cultural and creative activity, imagination games and sport. Sport is a significant part of how we enjoy “play” throughout our lives and football continues to dominate as the sport which most people – children and adults – play.
It is a simple game, requiring just something to kick and a space to kick it in. It is also a uniting force; as a global game, anyone having a kickabout will know that elsewhere around the world millions of others are doing the same.
Whichever ways we might choose to engage in football – as participants, as spectators, as campaigners – we have so much potential to raise our awareness of and connect with our sisters and brothers in Palestine.
As participants, we feel how the exercise of playing football can not only lift the mood and improve our sense of wellbeing, but significantly also how the engagement in a sport can be a vital distraction, allowing us to focus on something apart from our troubles. We all deserve moments of joy and peace, however fleeting. Chasing a ball or playing with others can offer us that.
As spectators, we can enjoy sport as part of a community. We can identify with a badge, share the same chants and songs together and our mutual understanding helps us to bear the games lost and enjoy sweeter victories. We can watch as the people who represent us bring us recognition and pride, even when we are far from experiencing that ourselves.
The Palestinian diaspora plays a large role in the representative Palestinian teams, given the huge obstacles that Palestinians based in the illegally occupied West Bank and the Gaza strip have faced in keeping involved in competitive football over the recent decades. The continued functioning of representative teams is a remarkable achievement in itself. And when teams make their mark on the world’s stages, this can provide a defiant message of survival of a people whose identity is a continuing battle.
This year the Palestine men’s football team has gone the furthest ever in its history in the football World Cup qualification process. This brings a profile to the Palestinian state as a recognised entity – it is worth noting that the world governing body of football FIFA in spite of its flaws, has recognised the state of Palestine – and as a culture in a way that can resonate with people not otherwise engaged in Palestine solidarity. You can keep in touch with the progress of the team here: https://footballpalestine.com
While the Under 20’s Women’s football team recently declared ‘We played for Gaza’ as they won the West Asian Football Federation title. Read about it here: https://www.arabnews.com/node/2597092/sport
And sport is an incredible tool for campaigning. At elite levels fans can work as one community to coordinate huge displays of solidarity with oppressed communities. You can read on this thread how crowds at football clubs all over the world use their combined presence to show the people of Palestine that they are not forgotten:
Football activism has taken over the stadiums.
🧵🇵🇸 Here is a thread of all fan bases calling for solidarity with Palestine and the suspension of Israel from the beautiful game:
At grassroots level, community sporting events – football tournaments are a common example – are such an effective way of getting people together who may initially just want to come and play but then engage in so much more – learning, meeting activists, raising money, becoming involved themselves. Just think of all the things that ‘small park BIG RUN’ has achieved based on the nominally simple concept of an organised run around a neighbourhood park.
Even in the most difficult times, sometimes especially in those times the deep rooted and significant power of football – as a participatory activity, a spectator sport and a campaigning tool – belies its simplicity as a form of play.
Last year at small park BIG RUN a team from Footballers for Falasteen carried this football lantern for 24 hours! Photo: Kev Dunnington
The theme of small park BIG RUN this year is play and education. Under incredible pressure and in the face of terrible destruction, educators and students across Palestine both in Gaza and the West Bank, ensure schools and universities carry on.
The building are destroyed but the process continues. We have written a short page describing this in more detail and below we have a video from a woman called Banyas who has set up a tent education operation in Gaza. We were sent this video in October 2024.
For decades the watermelon has been used as an elegant and stylish symbol to display support for the right of Palestinians to self-determination and justice. Sharing the Palestinian national colours, it symbolises a deep connection with the land and depicts seeds of hope for a better future. Plus, it’s pretty to look at, and very tasty to eat!
For these reasons we’re using it on this year’s small park BIG RUN products.
