Tag: Palestine

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Sumud – a breakfast discussion

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”

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Sheffield Footballers and Fans for Falasteen invite you to take the ‘3-3 Palestine’ Football Challenge at small park BIG RUN 2025

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. 

How much more vital this is for Palestinian youngsters whose day to day reality is so traumatic. Here is a link to a short article on that theme: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/06/gaza-boys-turn-football-forget-moment-war and another about football used as therapy to help in the healing work with Palestinian children: https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2024/10/8/how-football-brings-joy-and-helps-heal-palestinian-children-in-qatar

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: 

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

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Nakba Day 77

On May 15th it will be Nakba day, the 77th anniversary when 750,000 Palestinian people were forced to flee their homes.

But the Nakba has continued: a determined attempt to remove Palestinians from their land by occupation, house demolitions relentless violence from illegal settlers and more.

In our thousands and in our millions we have to be Palestinians now; what does it say if we look away?

Please do one small thing to commemorate the Nakba, help us build a climate of International solidarity that will, one day, help liberate Palestinian people from occupation.

Why not buy a ticket for Small park BIG RUN(https://spbr.org.uk)?

Or join in Nakba week events in Sheffield

(The photos are of a house in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, Palestine, earmarked by the Israeli civil court for demolition by the illegal occupation. )

#Nakba#OngoingNakba#spbr25#STOPtheGENOCIDE#stophousedemolitions

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Reflection on travels in the West Bank

In 2007 one of the small park BIG RUN organisers went to the West Bank. Through the lens of the devastation of Gaza today and the increasingly oppressive occupation in the West Bank, Kath looks back at her travels in the context of the genocide in Gaza that has been going on since October 2023.

You can download her reflections here . Please donate to Sheffield Palestine Cultural Exchange when you do. There are three ways to donate. We suggest £10.

  • By BACS: transfer funds to the Sheffield Palestine Cultural Exchange bank account using the reference ‘WBT2007’: Sort code: 05-08-18 Account number: 33129312.
  • Direct debit or credit card payment here (change the amount if you want to give less or more than £10)
  • Give as you live is here

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Solidarity events in Khan Younis and New Horizons 2023

Thanks the the Vanguard Video Unit in Gaza for producing this film. It interleaves footage of our event in Sheffield and the wonderful events in Gaza that took place at the same time: one by the children at Never Stop Dreaming Association in Khan Younis, the other at New Horizons Children’s Centre based at Nusseirat Refugee Camp.

The children in Khan Younis are remembering their friend Lian Al Shaier, who was 12 when she was killed by an Israeli bombing raid last year. You will see them holding her picture.

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Plant-a-tree at small park BIG RUN

This year  at small park BIG RUN we are raising awareness of how Israeli state policies have been labelled by Amnesty International and Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem as apartheid.

We have recently written about how Palestinians are denied access to clean water. 

Here we want to highlight how indigenous Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and apartheid, with no control over their land or natural resources, are highly vulnerable to the actions of settlers who defended by the Israeli army, regularly tear down trees that Palestinian farmers depend on for their livelihoods.

In a previous small park BIG RUN we welcomed Khaloud Ajarma who told us about the legacy from her family’s forced removal from their land.

This year, we are really pleased to be welcoming Mahmoud Zwahre, an academic and grassroots activist at small park BIG RUN at 3pm on Saturday 17th June.

He will plant a tree, native to the UK, and talk to us about the daily fight that Palestinian farmers face to hold on to their trees their land and their livelihood.