Wits Students Walk 100km Through Rain and Cloud to Stand with Human Trafficking Survivors

Photo Credit: Supplied by Annie Hodes (Angel Fish PR)

Through rain, exhaustion and 100km of determination, 16 Wits students turned every step of the Notties 100 into hope and financial support for vulnerable children and survivors of human trafficking.

Nottingham Road, South Africa (06 October 2026) – Sixteen members of the Wits Adventure and Environmental Society (WAES) took on the Notties 100, a demanding 100km trek aimed at confronting a far heavier reality.

Their journey formed part of ‘Breaking the Darkness’, an endurance event raising funds and awareness for Unchain Our Children, a South African organisation fighting human trafficking and the exploitation of minors.

The route was divided into four 25km legs, each with a six-hour cut-off. The weather was unforgiving: rain soaked the first half of the course, while heavy clouds hung over the second. Of the 16 who started, three completed the full 100km, while the others covered significant portions of the route.

Yet organisers say the distance mattered less than what the day represented: camaraderie carried the group from the first kilometre to the last.

At the end of each 25km section, the group paused for the ritual at the heart of the event: lighting a candle and writing a letter to someone still living through the kind of darkness the walk sought to confront.

For the WAES team, this ritual reframed the day. Walking through exhaustion and bad weather gave them a small, deliberate taste of hardship and a sharp reminder of how far it fell short of what survivors of trafficking and exploitation endure. The letters became less about the walkers’ fatigue and more about solidarity: a way of saying, in writing, that people outside the darkness are thinking of those still inside it.

Photo Credit: Supplied by Annie Hodes (Angel Fish PR)

Founded nine years ago, Unchain Our Children works to combat the prostitution of minors, human trafficking, and other human rights violations, helping to bring victims to places of safety. It is quiet, sustained work that events such as Breaking the Darkness exist to fund and spotlight.

WAES is built around adventure and the outdoors, so the Notties 100 was a natural extension of what the group does best: taking on physical challenges together. This time, however, the challenge carried a purpose beyond the trail.

Every blistered foot and rain-soaked kilometre through Nottingham Road became a small but tangible act of solidarity with people whose suffering is rarely seen and even more rarely spoken about.

By the end of the walk, WAES had raised over R26,000 to help protect vulnerable children and support survivors on their path back to safety. By sharing their journey, the team hopes to encourage others to look more closely at a cause too often left in the dark.