Blocktober meets human rights activist Ralf Jürgens

Art, acceptance and solidarity on the Camino

In this article

Ralf’s path to GaliciaMore than a beautiful landscapeAcceptance, not merely toleranceContinue the workMore from Camino BlocktoberPlease donate to support survivors

By Dawie Bosch

For a pilgrim, the Camino is a journey. For the people who live beside it, it is also home. Our conversation with Ralf Jürgens, who lives close to the Camino, brought that difference into focus, and opened another connection between Blocktober and Galicia in northwestern Spain: the work of defending a place, standing up for one another and making room for difference.

A festival in Monterroso, Galicia, brings people together across generations to celebrate diversity, inclusion and rural community life — an example of the acceptance Ralf Jürgens describes. (Source: El País)

Dawie met Ralf online, after our return

Lala and I had hoped to meet Ralf while walking through Galicia. Ralf fell ill, and I finally spoke with him online after our return to Cape Town. Jean Brundrit, a South African artist and the first resident at Do Picho, Ralf’s artists’ residency near Palas de Rei, had put us in touch.

I explained our daily commitment to walk, swim or cycle through October every year in solidarity with survivors of gender-based violence. We choose to keep going, even on difficult days; survivors do not get to choose whether the effects of violence accompany them. Ralf brought a long history of human-rights work to that conversation, but also the perspective of someone now deeply involved in a small rural community in Galicia.

Ralf’s path to Galicia

Before moving to Galicia, Ralf had lived and worked in Montreal, New York and Geneva, focusing on HIV, health and human rights. At Open Society Foundations and later the Global Fund, his work included supporting programmes against gender-based violence and helping women and marginalised communities assert their rights.

His connections with South Africa go back many years. He recalled a partnership established in 1996 between his Canadian organisation and South Africa’s AIDS Law Project, including staff exchanges. At the Durban AIDS conference in 2000, he helped organise a march for access to antiretroviral treatment with South African activists — at the time when the South African government was not rolling it out.

At Do Picho, the setting is different. A restored farm accommodates visiting artists, while part of Ralf’s home is also a shared space for community events. Renting rooms, mainly to pilgrims, provides the principal income for the artist residency. What began as a residency has grown into a cultural association, with gatherings once or twice a month.

It is an interesting use of the pilgrim economy: income from visitors helps sustain something that belongs to the life of the community, rather than serving visitors alone.

More than a beautiful landscape

Banners opposing the factory.

Ralf described the community’s opposition to a large pulp and textile-fibre factory proposed by Altri, a Portuguese company that processes wood into cellulose for use in paper and textiles. The factory was planned for a site near Palas de Rei, close to the Camino.

For those involved, he explained, the concern reaches beyond the view from the Camino. It is about natural forests, smaller farms, sustainable agricultural projects and a way of life. He spoke of people reviving local farming practices and protecting traditional animal breeds. The countryside we had enjoyed passing through was also a place where people were working, experimenting and defending what mattered to them.

The campaign had itself used the Camino for a protest walk to the proposed mill site — and, while walking the Camino towards Melide, we saw the campaign’s anti-pulp-mill banners. For us, walking had been a way of carrying solidarity from Cape Town to Spain. Here it was also a way for residents to express their determination to protect their home and way of life.

Acceptance, not merely tolerance

One of Ralf’s happiest discoveries had been the community he found through that environmental movement. He said that people oppose gender-based violence and welcome diversity, including transgender people. His distinction was important: “acceptance and not just tolerance”.

He spoke warmly of a queer festival in nearby Monterroso, where children, grandmothers and other villagers joined in (see the photo above). It challenged an easy assumption that openness belongs mainly to big cities. In his experience, rural Galicia could be a place of active, everyday inclusion.

Ralf also acknowledged that he lived in something of a bubble among like-minded activists and locals. Looking beyond it, he was deeply concerned about far-right hostility towards women, migrants and LGBTQI people, particularly transgender people. He described hearing from people in Madrid who were becoming afraid to hold hands in public. This was his account of a worrying change.

Alongside that concern, he had been struck by the public visibility of opposition to gender-based violence in Spain: signs in towns and meeting spaces declaring that it would not be tolerated. The contrast left me thinking about how a public commitment is sustained in everyday relationships and actions, especially when international political currents pull in the opposite direction.

He also drew attention to violence within same-sex relationships, particularly between men, which he felt received too little discussion. That widens the conversation without diminishing Blocktober’s focus on women and children: a welcoming community must also be able to recognise abuse within it.

“Continue the work”

When I asked what message he would send to Blocktober and the Saartjie Baartman Centre, Ralf’s first response was direct: “continue the work”. Supporting people and raising awareness mattered more than ever, he said. His second emphasis was on working with our own communities, using the relationships and networks already around us.

He was interested in connecting with the organisations we had met in Lugo and Santiago, and could imagine joining a group walking part of the Camino to raise awareness next year. He also noted that a supportive walk need not follow a famous pilgrimage route: there are many places to be together in nature.

A landscape to walk through, and a place where others live and work

Ralf hopes to visit Cape Town in January and to join a Blocktober walk, if there is one. It would be a lovely way to continue our conversation.

Solidarity can run through many streams: a human-rights programme, an artists’ residency, a community defending its countryside, and a group walking alongside survivors. The connection is in listening carefully, recognising whose freedom is at stake, and continuing to show up.

More from Camino Blocktober

Explore other parts of our journey:

• Blocktober takes to the Camino — why we took Blocktober to Spain.
• Camino Blocktober: The Complete Journey — our day-by-day diary, photographs and reflections.
• Is this how it should be? — Lala on the freedom to walk without fear.
• Hospitality on the Camino and the spirit of Blocktober — welcome, shared meals and women’s economic independence.
• Finding common ground in Lugo and Santiago — conversations with organisations supporting women affected by violence and exploitation.
• Blocktober Camino meets with Antonio from UGT Asturias — equality, migrant women and preventing gender-based violence.
• Symbols — How a scallop shell, Blocktober’s changing logos and striking artworks connect stories of identity, hope and solidarity.
• More Steps for Saartjie blogs — other Blocktober experiences, voices and ways to get involved.

Please donate to support survivors

Support the Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children through the Blocktober fundraising campaign.