美国国家公共电台 NPR One Woman's Facebook Success Story: A Support Group For 1.7 Million

 

NOEL KING, HOST:

All right, this next one is a question for the ages - or at the very least, for our age. Does social media make us more connected or does it make us lonelier? For now, we do not know. The science isn't conclusive¹, but there are a lot of interesting anecdotes². NPR's Aarti Shahani has the story of a woman who's using Facebook to build a movement for women's rights.

AARTI SHAHANI, BYLINE³: Facebook has more than 2 billion users. And last year, at an invite-only event, Mark Zuckerberg introduced one of the most influential⁴.

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MARK ZUCKERBERG: You know, a few weeks ago, I had a chance to meet Lola Omolola. Where are you Lola?

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SHAHANI: Loma Omolola runs a wildly successful group for women on Facebook. She has nearly 1.7 million members. Her group has grown organically - word of mouth - and turned her into a major Facebook success story. Company leaders pick her brain, study how she uses Facebook's tools, and last month, they flew her out to California to star at their annual conference.

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LOLA OMOLOLA: I just feel like the universe is coming together to validate⁵ me in some way.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: How do you mean?

OMOLOLA: It's overwhelming.

SHAHANI: Omolola is a 41-year-old mother of two. She looks younger in her bubble gum pink T-shirt and beige leather jacket, her hair in a short Afro. Sitting in an armchair at a hotel in Cupertino, she tells her group's origin story. It starts in 2014, when nearly 300 girls were kidnapped from a boarding school in Nigeria.

OMOLOLA: Whenever I turned on the radio and television, everyone was talking about the terrorism angle.

SHAHANI: Boko Haram - Islamic militants⁶ - did the kidnapping. But Omolola saw another angle - patriarchy. She saw men targeting young women for getting an education. She needed a way to be part of her country's mourning and healing. She's from Nigeria but lives in Chicago, far away from the protests and prayer vigils back home. So she turned to Facebook and started F-I-N - FIN⁷ - Female IN Nigeria, a support group for women.

OMOLOLA: I didn't know what I was going to do. I just knew I wanted to find them - at the very least - so that I wouldn't be by myself because it feels really lonely.

SHAHANI: Omolola invited friends, who invited friends. They organized meetups for members to socialize in the real world. And she found anecdotes on the Internet to share about other Nigerian women - for example, this one about a woman who wants to get her hair cut short like a boy. The hairdresser says, no, she needs a permission slip from her husband first. Omolola figured FINsters, as she calls them, would discuss the situation.

OMOLOLA: But guess what happened? And this was a shock to me - I think still is.

SHAHANI: I want to guess.

OMOLOLA: Tell me. Tell me.

SHAHANI: My guess is that people started sharing their own experiences like that.

OMOLOLA: Boom.

SHAHANI: Another time, Omolola was struck by a comment buried in a long thread about a woman who was dragged through the streets by her husband as people watched and did nothing. She messaged the FINster, who, it turns out, wasn't talking about someone else. It was her. NPR spoke⁸ with the woman. We'll call her by her first initial, O.

O: I just got tired of hiding. I just got tired of trying to put up a happy face when I'm actually not happy.

SHAHANI: O doesn't want to use her name for privacy concerns, but she let Omolola share her story, naming her on FIN, because, O says, it's a private group, and there are strict ground rules like, do not judge. A team of moderators enforces these rules, stepping in to delete personal attacks. FINsters responded to O with supportive notes, financial help, two offers for housing, and O left her husband for a while. When she decided⁹ to return to him - she says they're working things out - some group members were upset. But O recalls the message she got from Omolola.

O: You have my support. You found your voice. Make sure you do not lose it. And that was all I needed to hear.

SHAHANI: Omolola, who is trained as a journalist, has become a digital organizer, and she says her members are her mission.

OMOLOLA: There are women who, their entire lives, have been carrying such burden.

SHAHANI: Her eyes well up as she talks, and I ask what a lot of people have asked her - if something terrible happened to her. She says no, that both her father and husband encouraged her to be outspoken¹⁰ and helped her to believe in herself.

OMOLOLA: I know what true love feels like. I want that for everyone. That stuff isn't complicated.

SHAHANI: Back at that event last year with Mark Zuckerberg, he spotlighted¹¹ how Omolola's work is having consequences he never expected by breaking the silence around domestic violence.

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ZUCKERBERG: When someone posts in your community, they're going to get thousands of messages of support and offers of places to stay and help with childcare all within minutes.

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SHAHANI: In recent months, Zuckerberg has been very busy apologizing for Facebook's many failures. But Omolola believes his technology can be used for good if that's what's in people's hearts. Aarti Shahani, NPR News, San Francisco.

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1 conclusive   

adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的

参考例句：

• They produced some fairly conclusive evidence.他们提供了一些相当确凿的证据。
• Franklin did not believe that the French tests were conclusive.富兰克林不相信这个法国人的实验是结论性的。

2 anecdotes   

n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• amusing anecdotes about his brief career as an actor 关于他短暂演员生涯的趣闻逸事
• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman. 他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。

5 validate   

vt.（法律）使有效，使生效

参考例句：

• You need an official signature to validate the order.你要有正式的签字，这张汇票才能生效。
• In order to validate the agreement,both parties sign it.为使协议有效，双方在上面签了字。

6 militants   

激进分子，好斗分子( militant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The militants have been sporadically fighting the government for years. 几年来，反叛分子一直对政府实施零星的战斗。
• Despite the onslaught, Palestinian militants managed to fire off rockets. 尽管如此，巴勒斯坦的激进分子仍然发射导弹。

7 fin   

n.鳍；(飞机的)安定翼

参考例句：

• They swim using a small fin on their back.它们用背上的小鳍游动。
• The aircraft has a long tail fin.那架飞机有一个长长的尾翼。

8 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

9 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

10 outspoken   

adj.直言无讳的，坦率的，坦白无隐的

参考例句：

• He was outspoken in his criticism.他在批评中直言不讳。
• She is an outspoken critic of the school system in this city.她是这座城市里学校制度的坦率的批评者。

11 spotlighted   

v.聚光照明( spotlight的过去式和过去分词 )；使公众注意，使突出醒目

参考例句：

• The report has spotlighted real deprivation in the inner cities. 这篇报道披露了旧城区的贫困真相。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The paintings were spotlighted from below. 这些画用下面的聚光灯来照明。 来自《简明英汉词典》