3 degrees of Separation - Bring Back Our Girls

IMAGE: TWITTER/@FLOTUS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

I have been spending the better part of a month trying to digest the gravity of the girls stolen in from a Nigerian High School. It saddens me greatly, and also disturbs me that it took 2 weeks before the news even got onto the world's radar.

Meanwhile, my homeschool daughter, attends an all women's college. In my mind, I have imagined that schools like hers, that educate and empower girls to be leaders would really tick off the "Boko Haram", and that if we were not in a free country girls like my daughter, and a dozen other girls I have grown to love this past year would be in constant danger, or even worse, left unable to get an education.

I spoke to my daughter today, who is finishing her freshman year at college and asked her how many nigerian girls were at her college right now. You see, not only is her school a woman's college, but it is also a college with a student body that is largely international. While 68% of the student body are Southern US girls, 20% represent 25 other countries, and the remaining 12 percent from from other US states. There are girls from China, Japan, UK, Jamaica, India, and several African countries including Nigeria. So when I asked my daughter that question today, she rattled off a few names, and
said, "I'm sure there are more".  My already aching heart broke.

One-two-three-four or more girls stolen from their school while taking science exams could have very well landed at my daughter's college in the fall, or in the fall of upcoming years.  And we have no idea what kind of treasure we are missing out on.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer. She has been called "the most prominent" of a "procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors [that] is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature".Wikipedia

Chika Nina Unigwe is a Nigerian-born author and she writes in English and Dutch. In April 2014 she was selected for the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with ... Wikipedia

Adepero Oduye hails from Brooklyn, New York City by way of Nigeria. She is a graduate of Cornell University; and has studied acting with Wynn Handman, Austin Pendleton, and Susan Batson. She has appeared in 12 Years a Slave, Steel Magnolias (TV Movie), Pariah, Law and Order, and has numerous theatre credits. 

This is just a taste of what Nigeria has to offer us in the way of intelligent, hard working women who contribute to our country and theirs.  I dare say without this years batch of intelligent of educated girls from Nigeria, coming into the US to pursue further education that we are missing out on something beautiful and valuable in the way of cultural, artistic, and professional contributions.  

So while for me, there are 3 degrees of separation from myself and the Nigerian girls kidnapped in African

1. My Daughter
2. Her all women's college
3. Students coming from Nigeria to be educated there

I feel the loss will cause ripple effects that we cannot conceive.