Author: admin

Posted on

Carrying the flag for Palestine

Last year Judy, a local supporter of Palestine Solidarity and of the small park BIG RUN, carried the flag around Meersbrook for 72km and talked to loads of people about why she did this. She is doing the same this year. Say hello if you see her. This is her blog

Hello. I’m Judy and I’ve lived in Meersbrook, Sheffield for 14 years.

Standing in Meersbrook Park

As a teenager in the 60s I did the ‘hitchhiking across North Africa’ thing and the ‘kibbutz’ thing and i was blissfully ignorant of the reality and the history until relatively recently.

I am the same age as the State of Israel and I credit the small park BIG RUN with focussing my awareness on the Nakba – ‘the Catastrophe’ – that resulted for Palestinian people.

So last year, as we could not gather together in the park as we usually do, my activity was to walk a kilometre for every year of my life, every year that Palestinians have been enduring injustice.

I wrote a diary about that highly rewarding experience; in fact it was so rewarding that I am doing it again, this year. 73k with my Palestinian flag.

You can read about Judy’s adventures here

Posted on

#spbr21 merchandise – order your buffs and flags

Our fantastic new buff design uses recycled plastic. It costs just £5 and all profits go towards the children’s projects and women’s scholarship fund. 

We also have Palestinian flags for sale to carry around on your DIY activity prices below:

Both will be on sale in the park on June 19/20 but you can also order now via email. We will contact you to arrange delivery or pick-up.


Posted on

small park BIG RUN: our virtual poetry tent

Members of a women’s writing group in Sheffield have compiled videos of poems about Palestine, Freedom, Running and Health (this year’s particular theme) for Small Park Big Run 2021.

 There is one poem (at least) every hour on the hour for the 24 hours of the run. You will find them on our Facebook and Youtube channels.

We have stunningly powerful poems by local Sheffield and Derbyshire poets as well as the ‘great sower of hope’, Mahmood Darwish (pictured), Susan Abulhawa, Naomi Shihab Nye and Rafeef Ziaddah.

Be sure to set your clocks to watch the broadcasts as they come out!

The web version of the timetable is here and a pdf is here

Posted on

The perils of running in Palestine

Today, there was a run 3.5 kilometres from Sheikh Jarrah to Silwan.

All runners wore t-shirts that had # 7850 printed on back, the number of Palestinian Jerusalemites under threat. During the run, one runner (@jalalak_jojo on twitter ) tweeted about being beaten several times by Israeli forces:

“I am a runner. I run marathons around whole world. Never have I been attacked violently by police forces as I was today, during the Jerusalem run from #SaveSheikhJarrah to #SaveSilwan. I was beaten six times, attacked by Israeli forces, for running in my ancestral town & city.”

You can see this on the video:

Posted on

RUN TOGETHER, RESIST TOGETHER!

  • Running for freedom 2019
  • Opening the fun run 2019
  • Setting off in Nablus 2019
  • About to run in Sheffield
  • About to run in Palestine

We cannot sit back and plan this year’s run without mentioning, as a priority, the awful events in Sheikh Jarrah and the storming of Al Aqsa  mosque in Jerusalem and the subsequent bombing of Gaza. We, the organisers of small park BIG RUN feel deeply outraged, angry, and upset.

The daily injustices that are meted out to Palestinians by Israeli authorities have now escalated into yet another attempt to stamp out all resistance.

As you can see in these pictures: these are our friends, people we and you, small park BIG RUN supporters, have run with; people we have talked to over a crackly phone at the end of the Fun Run in previous years.

We want to give context to the media reports many of you will have seen and give you a sense of what you can do to help.

Posted on

spbr-the-Sheffield Way

In our second year of going ‘DIY’ we wanted to highlight things we know people are up to , in case you need some inspiration or want to join in and do the same.

Some innovative people from Sheffield Palestine Womens Scholarship Fund are taking on the DIY activity to new heights by adapting The Sheffield Way .

SPBR walkers in 2020

The walkers will be taking with them a Palestinian flag and an olive branch that came from Palestine (and which has been at all of the small park BIG RUN events)

There are 6 legs to this walk and it is 53 miles in total. Leaving from Meersbrook Park at midday on Saturday June 19th, the walkers will return on Sunday June 20th at midday. You can find out more about the route by downloading the maps and you are welcome to make your own pace on any section – or all of them! We will be publishing the expected times of arrival at the checkpoints in case you would like to meet up with the main group.

Dont forget to enter via Eventbrite

You can download the SPBR-The-Sheffield-Way maps from here

Posted on

small park BIG RUN 2021 now open for entry!

You can enter the run here.

Like last year it is a DIY run soas to avoid a mass congregation in our local park and keep us all safe. And just like last year we are looking forward to running , skipping , walking, hopping, juggling – or whatever we choose to do – with comrades in Palestine and elsewhere in the world over the same 24 hours.

You can find out more about the theme for this year’s run here. We will be publishing a programme nearer the time

Posted on

Qulandya

Thank you Body of Sound, an all women choir based in Sheffield for this lovely song, and recorded it for small park BIG RUN 2020. This tune was written after seeing ‘one wall two prisons’ graffitied at the Qualandya checkpoint.

Body of Sound have sung for small park BIG RUN before, mostly in the wet! This was recorded over zoom. So we missed being with them but at least they were dry this year. They have asked we put this as a prefix to their beautiful song

“Body of Sound is a women’s singing group in Sheffield. We have recorded Qulandya for Small Park Big Run 2020  

Palestinians are severely curtailed in their freedom to move. In the occupied West Bank they cannot travel freely from place to place without going through checkpoints and access to their land is often denied. Movement in and out of Gaza is limited: the border is often closed, denying Palestinians access to hospitals or visiting ill and dying relatives. An issue SPBR focuses on this year is child prisoners. There are currently 194 Palestinian children imprisoned. They are detained by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, and prosecuted in Israeli military courts with little or no legal representation. Palestinians are physically and psychologically imprisoned. Under the lock down we have experienced a loss of freedom to move – Palestinians are experiencing this every day”