{"id":59832,"date":"2026-03-19T11:47:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T11:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/?p=59832"},"modified":"2026-03-19T11:47:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T11:47:06","slug":"youth-say-no-to-war-sheffield-students-call-for-more-youth-activism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/03\/19\/youth-say-no-to-war-sheffield-students-call-for-more-youth-activism\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Youth Say No to War’: Sheffield students call for more youth activism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Young people gathered on Wednesday to protest political unrest and violence across the Middle East, one of many recent demonstrations outside Sheffield\u2019s Students Union building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sparked by the US-Israeli decision to launch a bombing campaign on Iran, their signs and shouts also protested aggression in regions such as Gaza and Lebanon – which they called a ‘not new but ongoing issue’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alistair Tice, 70, Socialist Party organiser, said: \u201cIt\u2019s quite inspiring to see young people get involved\u2026 and it\u2019s not surprising when you look at the world. I think the future for young people today looks very, very bleak. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhichever way you look at it, the planet is not delivering for the overwhelming majority and for young people this is more and more of a struggle. There\u2019s nobody standing up for them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Tice attended the protest, often involved with youth activists after growing up as one, while joking things have got \u201c50 years worse\u201d for Wednesday\u2019s students – who called for more of their peers to join as he had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

River Kay, 21, student, said: \u201cAfter the 2024 Palestine encampment a lot of activism died down. I think a lot of people can feel defeated when there isn’t that physical presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople all of a sudden feel disempowered and disillusioned, then they don\u2019t actually want to get out there and try and organise again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Members of the group shared complaints that social media \u201cdoesn\u2019t solve any of the problems people are facing\u201d and instead leaves young people feeling disinterested because of misinformation and ‘divisive soundbites’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

River Kay said: \u201cIt\u2019s frustrating on my end because people consider themselves social media activists but they won\u2019t actually turn up to or organise protests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI believe in actually trying to build a movement on the ground. That\u2019s why it\u2019s good to form protests even when you\u2019re not sure how many people will turn up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though small, Wednesday\u2019s protest grew as a number of people spontaneously joined the demonstration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of these students, Jamie Gould, 24, expressed skepticism about getting involved, but said: \u201cEven if I end up deciding that this group isn\u2019t for me, in the meantime I can\u2019t just do nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Young people gathered on Wednesday to protest political unrest and violence across the Middle East, one of many recent demonstrations outside Sheffield\u2019s Students Union building. Sparked by the US-Israeli decision to launch a bombing campaign on Iran, their signs and shouts also protested aggression in regions such as Gaza and Lebanon – which they called […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":296,"featured_media":59839,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,10,4],"tags":[56,1170,456,197,1162,126,263,213],"class_list":["post-59832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","category-top-story","tag-gaza","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-protest","tag-social-media","tag-students","tag-university","tag-university-of-sheffield"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/296"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59832"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59858,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59832\/revisions\/59858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}