To the editor:
Perhaps it is that the young women whom we teach at Caribou High School are of the same age. Perhaps the enormity of the kidnapping and its aftermath are so obscene that a response is inescapable. Regardless, we invite you to join us as we stand together as a community dedicated to educating all students and as citizens of this city to express our outrage and add our voices to those already clamoring for a response and solution.
Approximately one month ago, members of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram kidnapped approximately 276 Nigerian schoolgirls from a boarding school in Nigeria’s northeast state of Borno. The girls were gathering to take their final exams prior to their abduction.
Boko Haram which translates to “Western education is forbidden,” is a terrorist group especially opposed to the education of any females, regardless of age, race or religion. Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau has threatened to sell the girls into slavery. It is believed that many of the girls have already been sold as “wives.” Outrage throughout the global community, from world leaders and spokespersons of Islam has been growing in response to this repugnant act, as well as to the unseemly slow response to it.
Please join us as we gather on Friday, May 30, on the green of the north entrance to Caribou High School. We will gather from 3-3:30 p.m., as we, by our presence, join the international cry of “bring back our girls.”
Pat Karpen
Alana Margeson
Caribou High School
