Makan

How to Talk About the Nakba (Palestine 101 Online Mini-Series)
2025-05-27 18:30 - 21:00 (Europe/London)
As we commemorate the 77th year of the ongoing Nakba, we are running this two-part Palestine 101 workshop series to provide the foundational knowledge and skills to understand the Palestinian struggle and its history. We encourage you to attend both workshops, but you can also choose to attend only one.
This workshop will focus on how to effectively and accurately talk about the Nakba. Through facilitating a safe discussion space, we go through a few talking points regularly heard in the media about the Nakba, and we collectively analyse these arguments and how to respond to them.
Apply here
Deadline to apply: Thursday 22nd May, 6pm London time

War on Want 2025 AGM Panel 'Not in Our Name: Resisting the UK's Role in Israel's Genocide & Apartheid'
2025-06-14 13:30 - 17:30 | Rich Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road London E1 6LA, London, United Kingdom
Makan’s Outreach & Programmes Manager, Sarona, will moderate a panel discussion for War on Want’s 2025 AGM that will focus on the UK’s complicity in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and its broader role in maintaining the structures of apartheid and occupation. From arms sales and diplomatic support to the silencing of solidarity, the UK government and institutions are enabling and profiting from the destruction of Palestinian life.
Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza is enabled by international complicity – of governments, including the UK, and powerful corporations. Meanwhile, the super-rich and corporations are profiting from a political and economic system that pushes millions into poverty, increases global inequality and drives climate collapse.
These crises are connected — and to challenge them, we must be too.
Speakers include Rafeef Ziadah, Dr Mahim Qureshi & George Collecott
Tickets are free – but any donations directly support Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, our partner in the Gaza Strip. Book your ticket now to join us in turning protest into power.
Get your tickets here.

Whose Knowledge Is It?
2025-06-17
This session that will focus around unpacking indigeneity through a decolonial lens, creating space for dialogue that challenges dominant narratives and centres indigenous Palestinian perspectives and knowledges for the ‘Whose Knowledge Is It?’ conference with Students at Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.
The conference invites students, educators, researchers, and community organisers to engage critically with questions of decolonising education, epistemic justice, and knowledge production. Through panels, collaborative sessions, and open dialogue, we aim to explore how power operates in and beyond the academy, and how we might collectively reimagine more equitable and plural forms of knowing.
Hosted by students at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, and members of the Cambridge Interfaith Programme, this one-day event will create space for reflection, resistance, and rethinking how knowledge is defined, shared, and valued. Register here.

Queer Cinema for Palestine 2025: No Pride in Genocide
2025-06-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Pelican House, London, E1 5QJ
Makan’s Outreach & Programmes Manager, Sarona, will participate on a panel for Queer Cinema for Palestine as part of the 2025 global film festival during Pride month curated by PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
While Israel attempts to instrumentalise our identities as queer people to “pinkwash” its image as it commits genocide against Palestinians, we re-affirm that there’s no pride in genocide.
No-one is free until we’re all free!
Programme
* Refreshments from 6.30pm
* Films start 7pm.
* We will show 8 short films in total, using a projector
* There will be a break half way through
* After the break we’ll hear briefly from speakers on the themes of queer solidarity with Palestine and cultural boycott activism
* After the last few films are screened, you’re welcome to stay and hang out
Speakers
– Samir Eskanda, a Palestinian artist, organizer, and human rights activist based in the UK.
– Sarona Bedwan, Outreach & Programmes Manager at Makan, a Palestinian-led organisation that provides transformative education aimed at strengthening the movement for Palestinian liberation.
– Marwan Kaabour, a graphic designer, artist and writer, and the founder of Takweer – an online archive of queer narratives in Arab history and popular culture.
Tickets
* Free (unwaged) – 10 available
* £3 (low income) – 10 available
* £7 (standard) – 50 available
* £12 (solidarity) – 30 available
Buy your tickets here
All money raised after covering costs will be split three ways between LFP, QFP and Al Qaws (a Palestinian grassroots organisation for sexual and gender diversity (alqaws.org)

How to Talk About Palestine Workshop (inspired by The Table by Aisha Zia)
2025-06-21 12:00 - 14:00
We will run a specially adapted version of our ‘How to Talk About Palestine’ workshop to compliment Aisha Zia’s play, The Table. The workshop will help you expand your skills when talking about Palestine and conversations around migration by offering communication tips on how to engage in such conversations, and by building your confidence to know how to respond to various arguments. Register here.
Important: There are three small steps to the workshop room. Please contact us directly should you have access requirements.

Makan - The Two-State Solution: State-Building as Pacification (Online Mini Lecture)
2025-06-25 18:30 - 19:30
About this Mini Lecture:
With conversations about a two-state solution and establishing a Palestinian state picking up again between various Western powers and Saudi Arabia, this session aims to provide a critical historical overview of how the two-state framework emerged, from the Partition Plan to the Oslo Accords to the Abraham Accords to the new proposed French-Saudi conference. Through this, the session will explore how this framework as conceptualised by Western powers aims to co-opt the Palestinian struggle and entrench Israel’s power.

The session will include a 40 minute talk and a short Q&A.

Register here

Wednesday 25th June 2025, 6.30-7.30pm (BST)

** Deadline for completion – Monday 23rd June, 6pm London time **

Pinkwashing, Gender and Sexuality with Makan and Birkbeck Institute of Gender and Sexuality (Public Lecture)
2025-07-04 10:00 - 12:00 | Birkbeck Central
Join us for a public lecture on the historical and contemporary counterpoints of pinkwashing, jointly organised by the Birkbeck Institute of Gender and Sexuality and Makan, whose transformative education strengthens the movement for Palestinian liberation. The lecture will contextualise pinkwashing as a conflation of queerness and nationalist ideology, or the “queer branding” of racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia. Makan will draw on archival materials and anti-colonial strands of gender theory, attending to topics such as white savourism, colonial masculinities, gay assimilation and queer resistance. Birkbeck postgraduate researchers have the opportunity to remain for an afternoon workshop with Makan on anti-colonial research skills, collaborating to develop interdisciplinary theoretical knowledge and methods for analysing, evaluating, and resisting pinkwashing.
Speakers

Dr Penn Newell Penn Newell (they/them) is a queer writer, researcher and Lecturer in Creative & Critical Writing at Birkbeck, University of London. Some of their writing can be found here.
Sarona Bedwan – Sarona Bedwan is a writer and Outreach & Programmes Manager at Makan, a Palestinian led educational organisation.

When: 4 July 2025, 10:00 — 12:00
Venue: Birkbeck Central
Book your place

Zionism, Gender, and Sexuality Workshop 1 (Gender, Sexuality, and Anti-Colonial Struggle in Palestine)
2025-07-09 18:30 - 20:30
Workshop 1: Zionism, Gender, and Sexuality – Wednesday 9th July, 6:30-8:30pm – online
In the first part of our four-part ‘Gender, Sexuality, and Anti-Colonial Struggle in Palestine’ workshop series, we examine the relationship between colonialism and gender broadly, and examine how this applies in the context of Palestine. This workshop will focus specifically on the role of gender in the construction of Israeli society historically, during the early days of the Zionist movement and the foundation of the Israeli state, before examining how the role of gender in Israeli society has adapted and shifted over time, co-opting progressive ideas but maintaining these same colonial goals.
You’re more than welcome to choose any or all of these workshops to attend, however we highly encourage you to attend all sessions as they directly build on one another.
Register here: https://forms.gle/nj1ux3hLqCEFdf3a8
Wednesday 9th July, 6:30-8:30pm (London time) – Zoom
Deadline: Wednesday 2nd July

Israel’s Weaponisation of Gender & Sexuality Workshop 2 (Gender, Sexuality, & Anti-Colonial Struggle in Palestine)
2025-07-23 18:30 - 20:30
Workshop 2: Israel’s Weaponisation of Gender & Sexuality
In the second part of this series, this workshop aims to promote a deeper understanding of gender and sexuality not just as social issues but as material and political issues in the Palestinian context. This session specifically examines how Zionism constructs racist, colonial stereotypes of Palestinian men and women, and weaponises gender stereotypes of masculinity and femininity to further the oppression of Palestinians.
Register here: https://forms.gle/nj1ux3hLqCEFdf3a8
Wednesday 23rd July, 6:30-8:30pm – Zoom
Deadline: Wednesday 16 July

Palestinian Resistance to Gendered, Sexual and Colonial Oppression Workshop 3 (Gender, Sexuality, and Anti-Colonial Struggle in Palestine)
2025-08-06 18:30 - 20:30
Workshop 3: Palestinian Resistance to Gendered, Sexual and Colonial Oppression
In the third part of this workshop series, this workshop focuses on Palestinian resistance to gendered and sexual oppression, highlighting feminist and queer Palestinian movements and organising. By situating gender and sexuality as central to the Palestinian struggle, we will discuss how the Palestinian anti-colonial resistance has historically gone hand in hand with struggling against internal patriarchal structures as well as Israel’s weaponisation of gendered stereotypes.
Register here: https://forms.gle/nj1ux3hLqCEFdf3a8
Wednesday 6th August, 6:30-8:30pm – Zoom
Deadline: Wednesday 30 July

How to Talk About Gender, Sexuality, & Palestine Workshop 4 (Gender, Sexuality, and Anti-Colonial Struggle in Palestine)
2025-08-20 18:30 - 20:30
Workshop 4: How to Talk About Gender, Sexuality, & Palestine
This workshop aims to help people expand their skills when talking about Palestine in relation to topics of gender and sexuality by offering communication tips on how to engage in such conversations and how to respond to various arguments. Through facilitating a safe discussion space, we go through a variety of recurring talking points regularly heard in the media and the wider public conversation on this topic, and we collectively analyse these arguments and how to respond to them.
Register here: https://forms.gle/nj1ux3hLqCEFdf3a8
Wednesday 20th August, 6:30-8:30pm – Zoom
Deadline: Wednesday 13 August

Palestine 101 series: Palestinian History - Session 1: Reframing Palestine
2025-09-02 18:30 - 20:30
This workshop is part of our Palestine 101 series: Palestinian History. In this workshop we delve into the key frameworks and concepts through which the Palestinian struggle can be understood, such as Nakba, settler-colonialism, occupation, intifada, peace process, and more. Through interweaving a historical and conceptual analysis of the trajectory of the Palestinian cause, this workshop offers a critical understanding of Palestine, its history, and the discourse around it.
Tuesday 2nd September – 6:30-8:30pm London time
Register here
These two sessions are part of a broader Palestine 101 series designed to deepen participants’ understanding of the Palestinian struggle and equip them with the tools to advocate effectively for justice in Palestine. While attending both sessions is highly encouraged, participants are welcome to join either one.

Palestine 101 series: Palestinian History – Session 2: How to talk about Palestinian History
2025-09-16 18:30 - 20:30
This workshop is the second session as part of our Palestine 101 series: Palestinian History. It builds on the ‘Reframing Palestine’ session, focusing on how the key concepts from that session can be effectively communicated. Through facilitating a safe discussion space, we go through a couple of recurring talking points regularly heard in the mainstream media and the wider public conversation distorting Palestinian history, and we collectively analyse these arguments and how to respond to and debunk them.
Tuesday 16th September – 6:30-8:30pm London time
Register here
These two sessions are part of a broader Palestine 101 series designed to deepen participants’ understanding of the Palestinian struggle and equip them with the tools to advocate effectively for justice in Palestine. While attending both sessions is highly encouraged, participants are welcome to join either one.

Palestine 101 series: Settler colonialism & Imperialism – Session 1: Local & Global: Palestine as Indigenous and Anti-Imperialist Struggle
2025-10-14 18:30 - 20:30
This workshop is part of our Palestine 101 series: Palestinian History. In this workshop, we explore the concepts of indigeneity, settler-colonialism, and imperialism to understand Palestine as both a local Indigenous struggle for decolonisation as well as part of a global anti-imperialist struggle.
Tuesday 14 October – 6:30-8:30pm London time
Register here
Deadline to register: 7th October, 6pm London time
These two sessions are part of a broader Palestine 101 series designed to deepen participants’ understanding of the Palestinian struggle and equip them with the tools to advocate effectively for justice in Palestine. While attending both sessions is highly encouraged, participants are welcome to join either one.

A Conversation on Big Tech & Genocide (In person) - Makan, 7amleh, & Al-Kindi Club
2025-10-15 19:00 - 20:30 | Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Pl, Tyburnia, W2 1QJ
Join 7amleh, Makan, and Al-Kindi Club for a moderated conversation on Big Tech’s complicity in the genocide—from silencing Palestinian voices and amplifying harmful content, to the weaponization of AI, the deplatforming of Gaza fundraisers, and the systemic exclusion from financial services like PayPal.

Secure your space here

Speakers:
Rasha Abdul-Rahim (Senior Campaign Director, Own the Space)
Nadim Nashif (Executive Director, 7amleh)

Event Info:

Wednesday, October 15th 7-8:30pm @ Frontline Club (13 Norfolk Pl, Tyburnia, London W2 1QJ)

Vietnam, Algeria, Palestine: Passing on the torch of the anti-colonial struggle (Makan x TNI)
2025-10-16 18:00 - 19:00
This joint online webinar by Makan & Transnational Institute provides an overview of Hamza Hamouchene’s article, “Vietnam, Algeria, Palestine: Passing on the torch of the anti-colonial struggle”, featured as a part of TNI’s wider Palestine Liberation Series. This session will:

Examine the impact of the Algerian and Vietnamese struggles on the Palestinian struggle for freedom
Explore the protracted nature of struggle: how different events, periods, and moments of rupture build on one another to achieve liberation
Reflect on how these histories of anti-imperialist struggle provide lessons and strategies for our movements today.

The session will include a 40 minute talk and a short Q&A.
Thursday 16th October 5pm GMT/6PM BST/ 7PM EST.
Register your spot here

How to Talk About Palestine (In person) - Platforma Festival
2025-10-25 13:30 - 15:30 | Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery, 51 Priestgate, Peterborough, PE1 1LF, United Kingdom
Join us on Saturday 25th October as we deliver our How to Talk About Palestine workshop as part of The Peterborough programme with 62 Gladstone Street. This workshop is designed to help you speak more confidently and effectively about Palestine—particularly when responding to difficult questions or dominant narratives.
The session will offer communication strategies, tips for navigating challenging conversations, and insight into the most common talking points.
Platforma is a biennial event produced by Counterpoints Arts, showcasing bold, innovative work by artists from refugee backgrounds and creative projects with displaced communities. The Peterborough programme is part of the wider festival taking place across the East of England this October, fostering local connections and conversations around culture, identity, and belonging
62 Gladstone Street is a community-rooted arts space in the heart of Peterborough, with a particular focus on supporting South Asian and MENA artists. Through exhibitions, residencies, and public programmes, it provides a vital platform for underrepresented voices and fosters meaningful dialogue between artists and the wider community.
62 Gladstone Street presents this workshop as part of the wider PLATFORMA FESTIVAL with Counterpoints Arts & Supported by Arts Council England
Get your free tickets here

Palestine 101 series: Settler Colonialism & Imperialism - Session 2: How to Talk About Settler Colonialism & Imperialism
2025-10-28 18:30 - 20:30
This workshop is part of our Palestine 101 series: Palestinian History. This workshop builds on the previous workshop, focusing on how the key ideas from that session can be effectively communicated. Through facilitating a safe discussion space, we go through a couple of recurring talking points regularly heard in the mainstream media and the wider pro-Israel conversation about indigeneity, colonialism, and imperialism, and we collectively analyse these arguments and how to respond to and debunk them.
Tuesday 28 October – 6:30-8:30pm London time
Deadline to register: 21st October, 6pm (BST)
Register here
These two sessions are part of a broader Palestine 101 series designed to deepen participants’ understanding of the Palestinian struggle and equip them with the tools to advocate effectively for justice in Palestine. While attending both sessions is highly encouraged, participants are welcome to join either one.

Palestine 101 series: Israeli Apartheid - Session 1: Framing Israeli Apartheid: Uses and Limitations for Palestine Advocacy
2025-11-11 18:30 - 20:30
This workshop is part of our Palestine 101 series. In this workshop, we offer a comprehensive understanding of apartheid, illustrating how Israel’s policies meet the legal definition of apartheid under international law. This workshop also aims to help activists develop a critical understanding of some of the limitations of the apartheid framework, and how to utilise it strategically alongside frameworks of settler colonialism and occupation in advocacy work.
Tuesday 11 November – 6:30-8:30pm London time
These two sessions are part of a broader Palestine 101 series designed to deepen participants’ understanding of the Palestinian struggle and equip them with the tools to advocate effectively for justice in Palestine. While attending both sessions is highly encouraged, participants are welcome to join either one.
Apply here

Palestine 101 series: Israeli Apartheid – Session 2: How to talk about Israeli Apartheid
2025-11-25 18:30 - 20:30
This workshop builds on the previous session, focusing on how the reality of Israeli apartheid can be effectively communicated. Through facilitating a safe discussion space, we go through a couple of recurring talking points regularly heard in the mainstream media denying Israeli apartheid, and we collectively analyse these arguments and how to respond to and debunk them.
Tuesday 25th November – 6:30-8:30pm London time
These two sessions are part of a broader Palestine 101 series aiming to build people’s knowledge on the Palestinian struggle and how to effectively advocate for Palestine.
Apply here

The Role of Women in Palestinian Resistance
2025-12-08 19:00 - 21:00 | William Morris Community Centre, 6-8 Greenleaf Road, London, E17 6QQ
We will be delivering this event and exploring the role of women in Palestinian resistance. This event will explore Palestinian resistance to gendered oppression, highlighting Palestinian women’s movements and organising.
By situating gender as central to the Palestinian struggle, we will discuss how the Palestinian anti-colonial resistance has historically gone hand in hand with struggling against internal patriarchal structures as well as Israel’s weaponisation of gendered stereotypes.
Reserve your spot here

How to Talk About Palestine Workshop
2026-01-31 12:00 - 17:00 | Colliton Club, Dorset Room, Dorchester, DT1 1XS
Organised by Dorset PSC and Makan, this two-part workshop offers both a deep foundation in understanding Palestine and practical tools for speaking about it with clarity and confidence. Reserve your free spot here.
Workshop 1 – Understanding the Palestinian Struggle
We begin by establishing core frameworks and concepts through which Palestine can be understood, including settler-colonialism, occupation, apartheid, the Nakba, the peace process, and more. Through a combination of historical overview and conceptual analysis, participants gain a grounded, critical understanding of the roots of the Palestinian cause, its evolution, and the narratives that surround it.
Workshop 2 – Skills for Challenging Conversations
Building on this foundation, the second workshop focuses on how to confidently navigate discussions about Palestine in public, personal, or professional settings. Participants will explore common arguments and misconceptions frequently seen in media and public discourse, analyse how these narratives operate, and develop effective strategies to respond to them.
This will be a supportive, safe discussion space where participants learn from one another while building practical talking points and conversational skills.
Who is this for?
These workshops are suitable for participants with foundational or advanced understanding of Palestine who want to deepen their knowledge, strengthen their analysis, and gain confidence in addressing mainstream narratives.
Donations welcome
The workshop is free for a limited number of spaces. Donations are welcome on the day to help us cover costs.
