Teenage Guyanese Bloggers

Via Scott Stadum, I found out that our mutual Peace Corps friend has been busy in Guyana. Eric Terpstra has been helping to unleash the voices of teenagers in Guyana through guyteens.blogspot.com.

I took a quick read - it's only 10 entries so far - but a few things leapt out at me.

One student wrote about abstinence with women preventing HIV, and the choice of the author to abstain because of a fear of shaming and disrespecting herself and her family. There's an interesting cultural perspective; in the 1980s I was more worried about a slow, lingering death than shame and disrespect - yet that was in the early parts of the 'HIV Boom'; the after effects are still being seen - and shame and disrespect are an extremely large part of this throughout the region.

While most teenagers are blogging about less importing things, other students on this blog wrote about losing a loved one to AIDS, underaged relationships, marijuana, riding the bus, peer pressure and cocaine addiction.

Hopefully they keep blogging, learning from their mistakes, and building up. It's good to see teenagers tackling issues like these, especially in the Caribbean region. It should be encouraged.