Marissa Groenewald skips for a cause: anti-human trafficking
Our Woman Crush this Wednesday has a knack for skipping and is ready to take the sport of "rope running" to the top in aid of the anti-human trafficking project, Love Justice.
This week, Carol Ofori celebrates a woman aiming for the stars – one skip at a time. Marissa Groenewald, an avid athlete known as The Rope Runner on social media, is making waves with her "rope running", aka skipping, aspirations.
A devoted trail and long-distance runner, Groenewald hopes to take rope running to the Olympics.
She has already completed the 10km Umhlanga Run as a rope runner and participated in the Comrades Marathon. Now, she's setting her sights on the 56km Totalsports Two Oceans Marathon.
Beyond races, she has an even bigger goal: securing a Guinness World Record as the first and only rope runner to compete at this level.
But for Groenewald, rope running is about more than just putting it on the map – it’s a mission with a bigger purpose.
As an advocate for anti-human trafficking, she believes her journey as a
rope runner is very much connected with her journey of saving lives.
With every skip she makes, she hopes to raise awareness and funds for the anti-human trafficking project Love Justice.
She has partnered with them because of their 'Interceptive Monitoring' approach – this basically means that they identify and stop victims before they are trafficked across borders or overseas.
Human trafficking is something very close to my heart. Growing up, my mother was very much involved in anti-human trafficking in Asia. I witnessed first-hand how her contribution could save victims. At Love Justice, we are all about interception of the criminal act and restoration of dignity for victims. My dream is to inspire more people to join the sport, and hopefully it would become a global phenomenon and even become one of the Olympic sports codes
Groenewald has made a plea asking individuals, corporations, and private sectors to pledge support to this cause, to which she devotes every kilometre and every skip to raising funds.
Donations can be made via www.lovejustice.ngo.
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