Communities unite for the Great Get Together and Great Big Walk

More than 100,000 community events are expected to take place across the UK to mark the first anniversary of the death of MP Jo Cox.

Street parties and other local celebrations are being planned under the banner of The Great Get Together and Big Lunch during the weekend of the 17-18 June.

The Eden Project is also planning a Great Big Walk in the run-up to the events, inviting people from the four corners of the UK to walk through the country, visiting local groups and weaving together the stories of the UK’s diverse communities.

Over 105,000 events are planned for the weekend of 17-18 June, including 90,000 big lunches. The Big Lunch, which began in 2009 and which last year saw over 7 million people come together in their localities, has joined forces with the Great Get Together, an initiative by the Jo Cox Foundation.

Jo Cox, MP for Batley and Spen, was murdered outside her constituency office on 16 June 2016. Her husband Brendan Cox, launching the Great Get Together in February, described the murder as politically motivated ‘to divide our country and split communities apart’.  As a reaction, the Great Get Together ‘will bring the country together en masse’, he said in a BBC interview.

Charities and organisations including the RNLI, RSPB, NSPC, Oxfam, Save the Children, Scouts Association and The Premier League are involved in the project.

The Great Big Walk starts on the 28^th May when ten walkers from different parts of the UK will meet in Jo Cox’s constituency of Batley, from where they will walk home, in sets of two, to their respective parts of the UK, one team to Scotland, one to Wales, one to Northern Ireland, one to London and one to Cornwall. Along the way they will visit a different community organisation each day, hearing and sharing their stories, and inviting people to walk with them along the way.

The walkers will finish their walk on the weekend of 17-18 June and will celebrate with a Great Get Together or Big Lunch where they live.

• The Great Big Walk is looking for two walkers from the London area who would like to take part, and also for people from across the UK to get involved: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/london-walkers-needed-connect-people-communities-across-anna-jay?published=t