On 10th August 2025, our community lost Dr. Pious Nyandoro. Pious was a lifelong community organiser and activist, academic, Co-Founder of VVIDY (Voice of Voiceless Immigration Detainees Yorkshire), Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees for ASSIST, and ultimately a beloved father. His death was not a natural event, rather it was the result of the immigration Hostile Environment policies designed to dehumanise and destroy the lives of migrants. As a freedom seeker for 20 years, Pious lived within a machinery of precarity, violence and destitution. Pious and other migrants live under policies that damage their mental health. Sheffield alone has lost at least 3 freedom seekers in the last year due to mental health crisis’ caused by Hostile Environment policies that force migrants into dangerous living and social conditions. We walk because we refuse to accept a system that calls violence ‘policy’.

From 28th July to 1st August, we are walking 5 marathons (130 miles) in 5 days around The Peak District, primarily to recover the costs of Pious' repatriation back to his home country, Zimbabwe. We have chosen this distance as Pious was carried 130 miles from Sheffield to his UK memorial service, before his repatriation. This Solidarity Walk will form a continuous heart-shaped loop, beginning in Walkley, Sheffield, the UK home of our late comrade Pious.

Follow Eve, Deputy Director of VVIDY and ASSIST Trustee, and Jake, ASSIST Comms, Events and Fundraising Coordinator, as we undertake a test of endurance and resistance: 5 marathons in 5 days, traversing over 5,000m of ascent (the equivalent of climbing Ben Nevis nearly four times!). We are pushing ourselves to these limits to turn grief into power. We walk as a collective declaration that the conditions that kill must end. We walk to honour Pious’ memory, to make visible the violence of the state, borders, movement and to demand a world where movement is a right, not a privilege. Every mile is a refusal. Every step is an act of solidarity.

This journey builds upon the incredible solidarity shown in donations and support immediately after Pious’ passing. Even in death, the system extracted from Pious and his community. We want to thank everyone who donated to the emergency fundraisers launched by ASSIST Sheffield, VVIDY and the Racial Justice Network. Those initial vital funds ensured Pious was laid to rest with the dignity he deserved.

This challenge now seeks to complete that mission, fully replenishing the community funds used for his repatriation, securing the long-term future of the grassroots organisation he co-founded (VVIDY) and creating a mural for the community to honour his memory.