Today marked 100 Days of the Bring Back Our Girls calamity. Yes, even though pop culture has stopped flashing signs and the media has gone on to bigger and better things, those 200+ girls–yes, fellow human beings–are still at large. Now I’ve never been into politics so I don’t clearly understand how to make a significant impact through government, but I am a Nigerian by heritage and I too enjoyed high-quality education and developed discipline as a high school student in a rural town of Nigeria. I lived in an all-girls boarding house for 4 treasured years of my life. I enjoyed lack, hardship and the pains of adolescences while rallied around by many, many other girls , experiencing the very same thing. It was camaraderie; it was solidarity, and when we faced a sexual intruder who had been lurking around our campus at night, we merged our faith together and marched the school quarters for days in prayer and protest until the perpetrator was captured.
Many of us have no clue how to make a difference for the 200+ presently captive. Many of us have chosen to believe that this is just a big lie and publicity stunt! But with recent updates, this is very real, and suddenly we remember that there are also 200+ mothers living in their home cities, rural towns and homes, who have been crying for a straight 100 days. As a parent myself, I cannot imagine the pain, the void, nor the terror that they experience everyday as their imagination causes them to envision what their girls are going through.
I take time to imagine the plight of these mothers, you know, put on their shoes hoping that I can share the burden of the pain so that they feel less. I think about it, I feel the pain and I pray: I also mobilize others to do the same. Maybe if more people remembered and if more people imagined the pain, then somehow someone will imagine tangible solutions. Maybe that person would be one of the many advocates and activists that hide garbed everyday in scrubs, making moves at clinicals, and cramming in the classrooms of The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. I am convinced that this is truly the place where heroes are made. We’re waiting for answers but until then, please, DON’T FORGET: #BringBackOurGirls
