Originally, we planned for teams of volunteers to flyer five community colleges, UCLA, USC, CSU Los Angeles, CSU Fullerton, CSU Long Beach, and CSUN. We made large banners to get people's attention and have them sign in support of Esha. Anasa, John, and Roja (a One Million Signatures Campaign member) passed out more than 1,000 flyers at UCLA on election day, Nov. 4. The response was great. They even had the opportunity to speak twice to a large crowd at the Progressive Student Union elections.

We passed out candy and flyers at CSUN, where we had laptops for people to sign the online petition to free Esha. We did not make it to all the campuses, but ended up going to: Santa Monica Community College, Los Angeles Mission College, UCLA, CSU Los Angeles, CSU Fullerton, CSU Long Beach, and CSUN. We also flyered local businesses, neighborhoods, and parking lots. Check out pictures of us in action on our Gallery page.

We sent emails to all CSUN graduate coordinators; and to faculty, department chairs, and staff in what we considered key departments. These included mass communications, art, cinema television arts, gender and women's studies, ethnic studies, and anthropology. The emails contained information about the vigil, a link to our MySpace page, and a flyer jpeg.

This photo appeared in an online post about Esha. We don't remember the source, but it's unlikely those are Esha's hands.

The same information was sent to all Associated Students officers and many clubs at CSUN, along with a 1-page Participation handout in the body and as an attachment. The handout described ways to help Esha, including volunteering for the vigil and encouraging others to attend.

We sent individual because we wanted them to be somewhat personal. The recipient's name and department or club were used in each message. Some emails bounced back, but we also received replies expressing support for Esha and the vigil from department chairs, professors, AS officers, and club members. 

We found that one of the best ways to engage people was through direct conversation. When they heard about Esha being jailed for academic research, they seemed to genuinely care and want to help. Some professors started invited us to speak to their students. During these informal presentations, we wore our Please Free Esha t-shirts, passed out flyers, posters, and, when possible, stickers and Participation handouts. We went over details about Esha's arrest and invited everyone to participate in the vigil.

Students seemed to respond well, so we wanted to do more presentations. We compiled lists of the time, day, and location of classes in key departments at CSUN. The vigil was on a Wednesday, so we made Wednesday classes a priority since those students would already be on campus to attend. The idea was to email professors to let them know we'd be dropping off flyers during their classes. Even though there wasn't enough time for this, we did drop in on a few random classes. We also contacted and were contacted by different clubs and went to their meetings.

Faculty in the Journalism, Mass Communication, Chicana/o studies, Anthropology, and English departments were terrific about letting us speak to their classes and clubs. We connected with some exceptional professors and students who went out of their way to help spread the word about Esha.

The MySpace profile, our main website, contained information like vigil details, the story of Esha's arrest, links, ways to help, and pictures. Not only could we post updates, blogs, and bulletins; but it was easy for other users to promote the event. We asked our MySpace friends to repost our bulletins and blogs, put us on their profile as a Top Friend, and volunteer. And many did! Some still have Please Free Esha on their page.

Please Free Esha's top friends were vigil performers, volunteers, and strong supporters of Esha. By the time of the vigil, Please Free Esha had approximately 1,800 profile views and 300 friends, including Esha's sister. We'd posted more than twelve blogs and bulletins, which were often reposted by users. Typically, the blogs and bulletins had similar content, and were posted at the same time.

After creating the MySpace page, we started a Please Free Esha group on Facebook and posted the vigil as an event. Facebook already had two Free Esha groups and one for the One Million Signatures Campaign. We were less active on it, but felt Facebook was important because thousands of users belonged to those groups.

To help raise awareness, we tried to spend any "spare" time on MySpace. We sent short emails about Esha to users in CSUN-related groups and left comments about the vigil on profiles of Please Free Esha's friends. Using social networking sites enabled us to reach more people. Some MySpace users emailed to tell us they found out about Esha on our page. After the vigil, we were able to show our appreciation to participants by promoting some of their events on MySpace and Facebook. Click to read the Please Free Esha MySpace Blogs.