Camino EN

Blocktober takes to the Camino

By Dawie Bosch and Lala Steyn

[Haz clic aquí para leer este artículo en español

The journey begins!

This October, Blocktober is adding another path — quite literally.

While our usual daily walks/runs/rides/swims continue on Table Mountain in Cape Town, we will also be carrying the Blocktober message along the Camino Primitivo in northern Spain, walking from Oviedo to Santiago de Compostela from 1 October and aiming to arrive in Santiago around 18 October.

We are calling it the Blocktober Camino. Click here if you want to see where we are in our Blocktober Camino, and feel free to connect with us if you are in our vicinity.

A mural at the Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children in Cape Town, which provides residential shelter and a range of support services for abused women and children,including pathways towards economic independence. The words woven through the woman’s hair speak simultaneously of pain, survival, dignity and strength — capturing something of both the trauma endured by abused women and their determination to reclaim their futures.

Blocktober began in Cape Town as a simple but determined act of solidarity with survivors of gender-based violence (GBV). Every October, people walk, run and cycle — many of us heading repeatedly to the historic Blockhouse on Table Mountain — creating space for movement, connection and conversation about GBV. Others swim in the cold Cape Town sea. We also raise funds for the Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children, which provides shelter, counselling, skills development and other support to women and children affected by violence.

Walking has become an important part of what Blocktober means to us. Our experience is that it gives us collective connectiveness  and provides a visible and reflective way of standing alongside survivors.

The Camino Primitivo is the oldest recorded pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. It crosses the mountains and rural landscapes of Asturias and Galicia before reaching Santiago. Its history, its strong tradition of walking and its emphasis on reflection and human connection make it a particularly appropriate setting for a Blocktober journey.

For more than a decade, the Xunta de Galicia (the regional government of Galicia in north-western Spain) has organised an annual walk against gender-based violence around 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Known as the Camiño ao Respecto — “the Camino for Respect”, promoting respect and equality between women and men — the walk follows the final section of the Camino de Santiago, from Monte do Gozo to the Praza do Obradoiro in Santiago de Compostela.

Connecting across borders

As we pass through Asturias and Galicia, we hope to connect with organisations and people working locally to prevent gender-based violence and support women affected by it.

South Africa's experience of GBV is particularly severe, but violence against women, or other forms of gender-based violence, is not confined by borders. Communities in Spain, South Africa and elsewhere face different circumstances, but there is much that can be learned by sharing experiences, approaches and ideas.

We do not yet know exactly what these connections will look like. They may involve a meeting over coffee, a conversation about the work being done locally, walking a few kilometres together, sharing details on how we can contribute to each other’s fund-raising efforts or simply sharing messages of solidarity between Spain and South Africa.

That uncertainty is part of the idea. Blocktober has always been more about about encouraging connections and conversations that grow naturally from people moving together than about organising a single large event. 

While we are walking the Camino Primitivo in Spain, Blocktober supporters will continue their own daily journeys in Cape Town and elsewhere, including Kenya and Switzerland. Although our journeys will be separated by thousands of kilometres, we carry the same message.

Movement. Connection. Conversation. Solidarity with survivors of gender-based violence.

We hope that, somewhere along the Camino, people working against GBV in Spain will walk a few steps of that journey with us.

 

Read other articles in the series