Jordanian school students launch social media campaign for kidnapped Nigerian girls

AMMAN — Driven by their belief that education is a right for all, a group of students in Jordan is using social media networks and the Internet to help promote the cause of the secondary school girls abducted in Nigeria by extremist militants.

Students at the King’s Academy launched a page on the microblogging platform and social networking website Tumblr (letsbringbackourgirls.tumblr.com) in solidarity with the kidnapped students and as an attempt to spread the word about their plight, and also to defend the image of Islam.

In April, militant group Boko Haram abducted nearly 300 girls from a boarding school in Chibok in northeastern Nigeria. Dozens of the girls escaped, but Boko Haram is still holding more than 200 captive, according to international news reports.

“As students at King’s Academy, a Jordanian boarding school that stands for human rights, human dignity and the welfare of children, we are very similar to these girls whose only sin was to seek knowledge,” the students wrote on the Tumblr page.

“We were driven by this feeling, so we started reacting with the purpose of raising awareness on this issue,” they wrote.

“I believe that each and every... one of us is entitled to a proper education, no matter what or who you are,” one of the students that launched the initiative told The Jordan Times in an e-mail.

“When I had read about this issue in the newspaper it really got to me because they, in a way, are just like us,” the student added.

Another student said: “We saw the news and felt called to help in any way that we could. We saw that we were not that different from these girls. 

“We empathised with their families but knew that empathy was not enough. The students pioneered the idea, spread the idea through social media and changed the way our peers view the situation.”

The students, who spoke to The Jordan Times on condition of anonymity, believe that awareness is an important tool to promote the girls’ cause and rally support for their release.

“My aim as a part of this campaign is to raise awareness and grab people’s attention,” a third student said. 

“I want the whole world to understand that education is a right and that I have a say in this world despite my gender, religion, background or views,” the student added. 

King’s Academy is a private, not-for-profit, coeducational boarding and day high school (grades 9 to 12) that opened its doors in August 2007 in Madaba, some 30km southwest of Amman.