How to Help in Effort to Bring Back Kidnapped Nigerian Girls

[The Straight Story]

People around the world have Tweeted more than a million times the phrase #BringBackOurGirls, the hashtag for the campaign to rescue the nearly 300 Nigerian high school girls who remain missing after being kidnapped by extremists last month.

The global outrage at the kidnapping has shown a widespread interest by regular people looking to help the girls, or help prevent another tragedy.

...

Zama Coursen-Neff, director of the Children’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, had suggestions for individuals looking to actively help.

1. Support groups that promote girls' education and civilian protection.

2. Press your government to sustain pressure on the Nigerian government to search for the girls and improve protection for schools.

3. Press your government to insist on and respect adherence to human rights standards. One way students and teachers can help is through the campaign to End Military Use of Schools. This website, run by students, allows students and teacher to participate in the campaign to make schools off limits to warring parties.

4. And, of course, getting informed is important. The Global Coalition has documented a pattern of attacks on schools, teachers and students in 30 countries in the last five years -- a video on this is here: Education Under Attack 2014. And for an interactive map click here.


http://abcnews.go.com/US/people-world-kidnapped-nigerian-girls/story?id=23623297

Some other threads w/info:

Nigeria abductions: UK experts to provide advice
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024923736

FBI Set To Join Hunt For Nigeria Schoolgirls
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024915766

US team to help Nigeria locate kidnapped girls
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024915804

Obama on Nigerian Girls: We'll Do "Everything We Can"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024918597

UN says Boko Haram girls 'sale' could be crime against humanity
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024915276

Nigeria schoolgirl abductions: Protest leader 'held'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024910329

Nigeria in appeal to find abducted girls from US, Britain, France, China
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024909402

Global protesters call for release of Nigerian girls: 'These are our sisters'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024908546

[bettyellen]

1. Great post. Done 1-3, and 4 is an eye opener- isn't it?

[NightWatcher]

2. So, tweeting doesn't solve everything?

Slacktivism is a joke. we think that we are somehow solving something because we take ten seconds while we sit on the toilet at work to retweet something that all the other celebrities are doing.

We don't care what happens halfway around the world in a country that we cannot find on a map, but we want to be seen by others as giving a shit about international problems.

It's unfortunate what is happening with these kidnapped girls, but the same thing happens all the time in parts of the world that we never hear about.

It's unfortunate but it happens, and it will continue to happen regardless of what we tweet and share on facebook.

[The Straight Story]

3. Tweeting is part of modern day activisim, do you use twitter?

I can keep aware of a lot more now than I ever could before.

The media gets a little lazy in the US covering some things, which politicians notice (then tend to spend a little more time on issues in the news to placate people. Elections and all ya know).

People have been hammering the networks and politicians daily on this issue and now they are taking note finally. We can't fly off to Nigeria and such but we can pressure those in power who can do something about it.

When this was first brought up no one seemed to care. Now the president, his wife, congress members, and the media are finally giving it attention because they others refused to let it die or let the main stream media decide to just ignore it.

Social media is media by the people. It gets attention and the squeaky wheel gets the oil. And just like the big media outlets you can't handle every incident around the globe where there are injustices.

We have a voice, it can and will be heard. But if you say nothing you won't get anything unless you happen to get lucky and some big editor decides to make it a 'worthwhile story'.

I hammer the rw daily, and some specific congress members, on some issues. I have followers. They see it, retweet it or write their own. Others do the same. Media monitors twitter (several media outlets follow me as I do them now) and some stories I have directed to local outlets have gotten coverage (like calling in a tip, but using the web).