ON TUESDAY, March 25, Reading Poets’ Cafe hosted an event with members of a peace march aimed at showing solidarity with Palestine and countering Islamophobia following recent events in Gaza.
Playwright Peter Oswald is undertaking a 150-mile pilgrimage from Bristol to London to raise funds for schoolchildren in Gaza, and is also fasting during Ramadan.
So far the undertaking has raised more than £12,000.
He led the event, explaining his peace march and was joined by Nick Bilbrough, leader and founder of the Hands Up project, which provides learning and creative opportunities to children in difficult circumstance, including those in Palestine.
Mr Bilbrough spoke of the project’s work in providing educational opportunities and supplies to children affected, and provided many of the poems by Palestinian children, which were also read at the event.
Members of the Poets’ Cafe and Reading poet AF Harrold gave readings of works by Palestinian children, some as young as nine, which were published in the first of two collections collated by the Hands Up Project.
They also shared videos of the children reading their own work.
Mr Oswald said at the event: “One of the things we’re doing is pushing back against Islamophobia, which we are doing by celebrating Islamic culture, fasting in solidarity with them, and also by visiting mosques where we can.
“Since we started, everything has once more accelerated further into a desperate state.
“We are trying to respond by speaking at events like this, making contact with writers and creatives– but we are in a British University, where freedom of speech is coming under threat.
“So we aim to maintain the intensity of protest at the same time– but we also want to mitigate the way that they have been silenced.”
Mr Bilbrough said at the event: “Despite all of what is going on, we still carry on, and the children of Gaza carry on–they write poems, they write plays.”
More information about the Hands Up Project is available via: handsupproject.org
