The aim of his journey is equally ambitious: Kato wants to highlight the parallels between the millions of people forced to leave their homes today for a better life and the earliest movement of humans from Africa.
"The Khoisan people in South Africa, for example, are moving based on climate. They migrate to find a better environment that they can live in. So we're moving for the same reasons that [anthropologists believe early humans] used to move for back then," said Kato.
In highlighting the origins of migration, he also hopes to work towards ending racism.
"I know that Africa is the origin of humanity, and if you tell someone that they should go back to where they come from that means we all basically have to go back to where we come from," he said.
The 36-year-old Ugandan-born London-based runner began his journey on 24 July last year from Cape Town's Long March to Freedom monument, which commemorates the anti-apartheid struggle. He hoped to complete the challenge in 381 days the same number of days that African Americans in Alabama staged the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 - but setbacks have put him behind schedule.
This story is from the March 22, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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This story is from the March 22, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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