Event information
After 8 Sistahood has grown from Women Who Walk at Nearly Midnight - the practice of women walking, together, at night on the streets of cities around the world, to reclaim the streets and their safety.
This feminist walking collective organises group walks for women through Cape Town neighbourhoods at night. The Cape Town chapter began in August 2022, initiated by Professor Amrita Pande from UCT, building on a practice that originated in Delhi in 2016. Walks typically attract between 30 and 100 participants who gather in different neighbourhoods each month. The December 2025 walk, which included a train ride from the city to Muizenberg and back, attracted nearly 300.
The practice emerged from conversations around women's safety and freedom of movement during the 2012 Nirbhaya movement in India. Theatre artist Mallika Taneja initiated the first walk in Delhi, inspired by Maya Krishna Rao's performance piece Walk, which asserted women's right to occupy public streets at any hour. The movement has since expanded to cities including Faridabad, Bangalore, Kathmandu and Cape Town.
Walks are non-ticketed, non-sponsored and open not just to women but are explicitly welcoming to trans and non-binary participants. The focus is on vulnerability and collective care, not birth-assigned categories. Each walk is led by a volunteer from the neighbourhood being explored, typically covering six to seven kilometres over approximately two hours. Walk times vary but generally start just after sunset and finish around 10pm, depending on location and route. The collective emphasises safety through numbers rather than individual safety mechanisms, walking at the pace of the slowest participant without high-visibility equipment or dogs.
Routes often incorporate socioeconomic and political themes. Past Cape Town walks have visited Observatory, Sea Point, Muizenberg, Woodstock, Salt River, City Bowl and Bellville. The August 2025 Salt River walk traced the community's Palestine solidarity murals and included stops at Community House and Cissie Gool House to discuss housing activism and working-class resistance.
Registration opens through the WhatsApp community or Instagram account prior to each walk. Participants receive route details and meeting points through WhatsApp groups. The collective operates through volunteer labour without formal organisational structure.
Please note:
* Walks are 2–3 km maximum
* Wals are conducted at the pace of the slowest walker
* For safety reasons, routes are not shared publicly in advance, though all other logistics (including ride shares) are coordinated via the WhatsApp group and Instagram