Pages 5 final.qxp_Dignity, Agency, Power 14/04/2022 13:16 Page 29
Dignity
Movement story: the Pilgrimage Against Poverty One step at a time We journey onwards with God. This is pilgrimage. Nick Waterfield
Nearly a quarter of a century ago, as the world was counting down to the year 2000, hundreds of people took part in an extraordinary 670-mile journey. The Pilgrimage Against Poverty, organised by Church Action on Poverty, shone a light on poverty in the UK and pressed for change, mobilising and energising supporters all over the country as never before. The pilgrims began on the Scottish island of Iona in August 1999, and ended nine weeks later in London. Seven people walked the entire route. Dozens more completed long stretches. And hundreds joined in for a few hours at a time, walking through their own village, town or region. Along the way, the pilgrims prayed, visited local groups and projects, listened and learned, and discussed how poverty could be ended. Two people who remember it fondly are Val Simcock and Pat Devlin. Val was alerted to the opportunity by her daughter Emma, who was volunteering with Church Action on Poverty at the time. Val had been looking for a unique way to celebrate the turning of the millennium, and jumped at the chance. “I had no experience of anything like that before, and it was a magical time,” she recalls. “We became a close-knit group, and I recall we always seemed to be walking in sunshine. It was a time of prayer and penance as well as pilgrimage. We started every day with prayer and ended every day with a time of reflection.” Val had hoped to walk the whole way, but was delayed by family illness so instead joined at Glasgow. Ten years on from the pilgrimage, she wrote about it in Church Action on Poverty’s newsletter: “Our accommodation was very varied – sometimes we slept on church hall floors and at others we would be taken in pairs to sleep in the houses of local people. I am always reminded of this experience when I hear the
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