SLC women host vigil to help bring home kidnapped Nigerian girls

SLC women host vigil to help bring home kidnapped Nigerian girls

(Bring Back Our Girls)


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SALT LAKE CITY — Seven thousand miles are not enough to deter two Salt Lake City women from trying to help bring more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls home to Nigeria.

It’s been 200 days since Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped 276 girls from the Chibok Government Secondary School, and only 53 have escaped.

Elisabeth Woodfield and Kate Hubrich are working with the Bring Back Our Girls campaign to hold a vigil for the girls at the Utah Capitol Saturday. they hope to gather at least 223 signatures, one for each captive girl, from women and men in the Salt Lake community.

Woodfield said they plan to present the signatures to government leaders in order to raise awareness for the girls, in hopes that the U.S. government will bolster its efforts to help the Nigerian government bring the girls home.

“The more support we have on a local, national and international level, the more effective we can be for the Nigerian government, and other Nigerian groups that are trying to get these girls back to their hometown,” Woodfield said.


The more support we have on a local, national and international level, the more effective we can be for the Nigerian government, and other Nigerian groups that are trying to get these girls back to their hometown.

–Elisabeth Woodfield


The vigil, which will take place from 10 a.m. to noon at the Rotunda of the Utah Capitol, will educate participants about the issue in addition to providing an opportunity for people to write letters to local and national leaders.

There will also be a short program featuring information about the girls, music and a short speech by a representative of the Nigerian Association of Utah.

Woodfield and Hubrich are inviting attendees to wear red, the color of power, to the event.

“I think it’s important for us to be involved in asking the government for support,” Woodfield said. “It may not directly affect us in the U.S., but the more that this issue goes unaddressed, we’ll continue to accept it in our own community.”

Woodfield said she has a couple of connections with local politicians, and they will leverage their connection with local government to take a stand.

“The more noise U.S. citizens are making, the greater the chances they’ll make the effort,” Woodfield said. “There are a lot of things we can be doing, so we’re just asking them to make a greater effort to bring them back.”

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Megan Marsden Christensen

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