Blocktober — walking the talk on Devil’s Peak
By Rosalie Kingwill
Read on Daily
Maverick,
October in Cape Town brings Blocktober, a campaign of daily
walks, runs, rides and swims with a shared humanitarian purpose: raising
awareness and expressing solidarity with survivors of gender-based violence.
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| Blocktober regulars Lala Steyn, Jean du Plessis, Dawie Bosch and Dixon Windross in Blocktober T-shirts. (Photo: Blocktober) |
The heart of the Blocktober movement is the King’s Blockhouse on Devil’s Peak – the original site and namesake of the initiative. While participation is international and includes various activities, the Blockhouse remains its symbolic centre.
From the Blockhouse summit, one can trace a panoramic view –
the city centre, harbour, Groote Schuur Hospital and beyond. But the gaze also
stretches towards Robben Island and District Six – reminders of South Africa’s
layered history of surveillance, control and racialised violence.
The Blockhouse, one of three 18th-century forts linking
Table Bay and False Bay, once served colonial powers fighting for dominance in
global trade wars.
Today, in the words of a Blocktober blogger and walker
Marthe Muller (COO of South African Women
in Dialogue), “that vantage point offers a different reflection: the fort
now stands watch over a different kind of battle, the interpersonal violence
that still scars so many human relationships after the centuries of structural
violence inflicted by white supremacy, colonialism and apartheid”.
From a single ride to a movement
To understand Blocktober’s evolution since its inception in
2020, I spoke to two of its driving forces – Jean du Plessis and Lala Steyn –
whom I consider its living “institutional memory”.
Reluctant to draw attention to themselves, they nevertheless
helped me unpack how Blocktober has sustained its spirit and purpose over six
years.
The Blocktober website
sums up its ethos:
“Blocktober is a humble but determined Cape Town-based
movement of people against gender-based violence. We come together every
October to walk, run or ride to the King’s Blockhouse on the slopes of Table
Mountain as an act of slow-burn solidarity.”
This year, I joined six of the 31 daily walks – a small number compared with many others – but the experience deepened my appreciation of how the movement retains its value and momentum.
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| Participants at the King’s Blockhouse bow their heads to protect the identity of survivors of gender-based violence. (Photo: Dawie Bosch) |
Karabo Mafolo took part in Blocktober in 2021 and wrote about her experience for Daily Maverick, echoing the sentiments of the walkers to this day.
Blocktober began in 2020 when Jean’s routine daily cycles
from Newlands to the Blockhouse evolved into a personal act of solidarity with
a survivor of gender-based violence.
The rides soon attracted others, growing into a collective
effort that became linked with the Saartjie Baartman Centre
for Women and Children in Manenberg. The centre offers shelter, crisis
intervention and support for survivors, and is now integral to Blocktober’s
mission.
Jean credits his cycling companion, journalist Jonathan Ancer, with coining the term Blocktober – a play on Movember.
At the time, Jean was grappling with the aftermath of a
close friend’s sexual assault and her long struggle for justice through a
drawn-out tribunal process. “It was punishment via process,” he told me.
Out of that anguish grew a broader campaign – one that
channels grief, solidarity and awareness through physical endurance and through
rhythmic, repetitive, “slow-burn” daily repetition.
“We are together and we are supporting the Saartjie Baartman
Centre,” Jean says. “They represent the issue, and we are the constituency.”
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| Walkers reach the King’s Blockhouse. (Photo: Jean du Plessis) |
Movement and campaign in one
So what exactly is Blocktober – a movement
or a campaign? “Both,” Jean and Lala told me.
A movement, because it embodies ongoing and continuously
evolving voluntary action and shared purpose. A campaign, because it directs
that energy towards specific goals, such as fundraising for Saartjie
Baartman.
This combination – flexible yet focused, grounded yet
adaptive – is a balancing act requiring leadership that allows fluidity and
innovation but understands the need for continuity and solidity.
Jean and Lala complement each other in embodying these traits while deflecting personal credit, emphasising instead the community’s collective strength.
Despite its informal structure, Blocktober still needs a
“nerve centre” to coordinate activities and connections – a challenge that
grows each year as participation expands.
Jean describes the movement’s growth as a story of
“synchronicity and synergy” – of chance encounters weaving together unexpected
threads into a living, expanding tapestry.
After a serious cycling accident earlier this year, Jean
continued his daily Blocktober regime, contributing from the gym and pool at
the Sports Science Institute of
South Africa.
Through the institute he helped forge a partnership with
their OptiFit Outreach Programme under the Community
Health Intervention Programmes (CHIPs), which conduct fitness and
exercise regimes at various community branches. As a result, in the true spirit
of making connections, a link was made with the Saartje Baartman Centre where
CHIPs will officially launch an OptiFit branch this month.
“It’s far more than money,” Jean says. “It’s about creating
lasting, living connections linked to action.”
Jean reminded me that his former cycling companion, Ancer,
in his 2024 book, Bulsh*t,
drew attention to the “danger of masking the horrors of systemic sexual assault
and rape via acronyms and platitudes, and the hypocrisy of periodic political
or campaign hand-wringing and posturing without real action”.
The anchor on the mountain
This year, Lala led the daily walking initiative and
fundraising drive, coordinating through WhatsApp groups: Steps for Saartjie and
the wider Blocktober community Walk, Run, Ride, and Swim. The various digital
platforms, set up by Dawie Bosch and Janet Purcell (who trained Lala to use
them), helped track participation and quantify collective effort.
In 2025, participants collectively covered 16,700km through
walking, running, cycling and swimming – including 430 ascents to the
Blockhouse, totalling more than 2,000 hours of activity. In one of the
final blog updates, they noted:
“We walked 3,225km to the Blockhouse this month – the
distance from Cape Town to Blantyre, Malawi.” Blantyre was an apt reference as
Blocktober stalwart Dixon Windross, who walks or cycles daily during
Blocktober, was raised in Blantyre.
I was intrigued by Lala’s commitment to walk every single day this Blocktober – along with organising daily blogs and managing much of the fundraising side of it. She explained her daily commitment not in terms of heroism but practical leadership: “I saw myself as the anchor in 2025. Walking every day at a set time created a space for others to join when they could. Survivors of gender-based violence don’t get a day off – neither will I!”
Like Jean, Lala stresses that connection and movement are
Blocktober’s essence. The goal is not only awareness but tangible support –
funds that help survivors build skills and economic independence after leaving
the Saartjie Baartman Centre.
More than R525,509 was donated (over 2024 and 2025) which
will be used by the centre to fund a full-time entrepreneur manager at the
centre and for ancillary costs for the Blocktober CHIPs community
gym.
Listening, connection and compassion
Blocktober thrives on its openness and adaptability – a
living organism of mentorship, empathy and community.
During walks, listening is emphasised as the most powerful
form of solidarity. Participants describe how companionship on the trail
strengthens bonds of compassion and shared humanity.
The two recurring motifs – connection and movement – define
the philosophy. Connections form organically through networks-within-networks;
movement becomes both therapy and activism.
The Steps
for Saartjie blogs reflect an aspect of connection. During Blocktober
31 blogs were published, giving voice to 16 diverse authors, including
survivors of gender-based violence.
As Jean says: “There are no textbooks, and there’s no
preaching.”
Lala adds: “It’s a broad church.”
There are no preconditions for joining, only a few basic
guidelines to protect survivors and remain sensitive to triggers. Above all,
Blocktober is grounded in humility – not heroism or self-congratulation – and
united by compassion and practical support. DM
Rosalie Kingwill is a land governance researcher, street
gardener and new recruit to Blocktober.
Blocktober takes place every October. To find out more about the Blocktober movement, join the WhatsApp Group.
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