Schools

Students Plan Nigerian 300 Vigil #BringBackOurGirls

Walt Whitman High School students in Bethesda are hosting a vigil to raise awareness for the 300 Nigerian school girls who were kidnapped last month.

Walt Whitman High School students will host a vigil Tuesday night to show the families of the 300 kidnapped Nigerian girls that they are not forgotten.

On April 14, militant group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from the Government Girls Secondary School in rural Chibok, roughly 600 miles from the capital of Abuja, according to CNN. This first kidnapping was followed by another kidnapping Sunday night where at least eight girls were taken from the village of Warabe.

“This is an issue that we cannot ignore any longer, and everything we can do to bring attention to this cause is absolutely essential,” the Walt Whitman girls wrote in the Facebook invitation for the event. “I encourage everyone in the Bethesda area to be in attendance. If you are a parent, neighbor, student at Whitman, BCC, Wooton, Churchill, or any other school, please come. Please help us support this cause."

CNN reports that the kidnapped girls may have been split up into smaller groups.

“It’s vital to use the information to find the girls before they are dispersed across Africa, which is a very real possibility,” former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the U.N.’s, special envoy for global education, told CNN.

The Nigerian government has reached out for help, and according to CNN, seven members of the U.S. military will arrive in Nigeria on Friday. They will join an advisory team to support the efforts to rescue the girls. There are currently no plans to send over U.S. combat troops.

Those who gather at Walt Whitman will each be given a number and a candle to represent each Nigerian girl.

One Facebook post on the event urges people to “tell your parents, email your cousins, send a carrier pigeon to your friends, [and] do whatever it takes to get as many people to this event as possible.

The vigil will take place at 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 13, at Walt Whitman High School, 7100 Whittier Blvd. in Bethesda.

For more information on the event, visit the Facebook event page.


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