Cáritas promotes a Camino de Santiago for hope: “No one without a home”
As part of the “No One Homeless” campaign, 110 people from 27 Cáritas Diocesanas in Spain, including homeless participants, volunteers and technicians, made a pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago at the beginning of April.
Cáritas described this initiative, divided into three routes, as "a transformative experience of encounter, visibility and shared hope."
Eva San Martín, one of the pilgrims, shared her experience with deep emotion:
«Behind are kilometers of beautiful nature, rocky paths, monuments with history, but also kilometers of effort, improvement, silences, laughter, company, encounters... in short, kilometers of a lot of life.»
The symbolic Compostela they received at the end of their pilgrimage reflected this feeling. Despite the daily difficulties faced by homeless people, the Camino allowed their "resilience, perseverance, kindness, smiles, service, care, sensitivity, strength to emerge."
The experience was marked by the closeness and hospitality of the Parish Caritas that welcomed them, sharing steps, table, rest and reflection. The "magic of the Camino" was transformed into prayer upon entering the Plaza del Obradoiro, where they cheered in unison: "No one without a home, no one without a home, no one without a home!"
The arrival was an explosion of emotions, hugs and tears, but also a reminder of the countless challenges faced by poor and excluded people from society, whose visibility and rights are claimed.
The participants returned to their “homes” – centers, shared rooms, substandard housing or even cars – renewed with the hope that “God lives in each person” and “takes care of his favorites, the smallest and most vulnerable, in a thousand ways.”
The Camino urged them to “lose fear to move forward; network and build community; train better; express closeness; demand justice" and "learn to ask for help." With a new song in their hearts, they returned to their reality with the firm purpose that:
«And it will be equal or it will not be, Because the Kingdom of God is Within us. Say enough, say no one is homeless.
