On the 18th and 19th of September, the Wits Adventure and Environmental Society (WAES) took on the Notties 100, a 100km trek held as part of Breaking the Darkness, an endurance event raising funds and awareness for Unchain Our Children, a South African organisation dedicated to combating human trafficking and the exploitation of minors. By the end of the walk, WAES had raised over R26,000 for the cause.
The route was split into four 25km legs, each with a six-hour cut-off. The weather didn't cooperate; rain soaked the first half, and low cloud hung over the second. Of the sixteen who started, three completed the full 100km, while the rest covered significant portions of the route. But 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 addressed to someone still living through the kind of darkness the walk was raised to confront. For the WAES team, the exercise reframed the day. Walking through exhaustion and bad weather gave them a small, deliberate taste of hardship, and a sharp reminder of how far short that fell compared to what survivors of trafficking and exploitation actually endure. The letters became less about the walkers' own fatigue and more an act of solidarity: a way of saying, in writing, that people outside the darkness are thinking of those still inside it.
Unchain Our Children, founded nine years ago, works to combat the prostitution of minors, human trafficking, and other human rights violations, helping bring victims to places of safety; quiet, sustained work that events like Breaking the Darkness exist to fund and spotlight.
For WAES, a society built around adventure and the outdoors, the Notties 100 was a natural extension of what the group does best; taking on physical challenges together. But this walk gave that challenge a purpose beyond the trail. Every blistered foot and rain-soaked kilometre through Nottingham Road became a small, tangible act of solidarity with people whose suffering is rarely seen and even more rarely spoken about.
The society hopes the funds raised will go directly toward protecting vulnerable children and supporting survivors on their path back to safety, and that this story will encourage others to look a little closer at a cause too often left in the dark.
For more information on the Wits Adventure and Environmental Society (WAES) please visit https://www.instagram.com/waeswits?stkn=MWlqZjRodXI5M2c3bA==
