Check out the new blog, Beijing Youth Voices, by 6 Chinese youth who live in Beijing--Iris, Siqi, Steven, Linda, E-mail, and Kelan. For the next few months, they will be posting bi-weekly blogs, giving you a peek into their lives and life in China. This blog is a project between the U.S. based-nonprofit What Kids Can Do, Inc. and Adobe Youth Voices.

Over the past few months of preparing this project, I have had the honor to work with What Kids Can Do, Adobe Youth Voices and ChinaPax (a Beijing based Mandarin language program). I am particularly excited about seeing this project come to life after a few months of connecting the most dynamic team of youth bloggers. Despite the number of Chinese blogs (being sited anywhere from 700,000 to 2 million), many blog posts that are written in Chinese rarely make it beyond China. With all the recent news surrounding China's Olympics in Beijing, we thought that in addition to the mass media reports it would be great to just hear what Beijing life is like from the perspective of 6 high school aged youth, who will be telling their stories (in English) of what Beijing means for them and what daily life is like.

Although we cannot stretch their writings to be reflective of life all over China, we can at least gain an intimate inside into life for these particular group of youth from a specific place and background. It is our hopes that through this aggregated blog, you will follow their writings for the next few months, give them encouragement and feedback by leaving comments on their writings. I am constantly amazed by their strength to open up their lives.

Please help spread the word about their blog by forwarding, reposting, or using their posts in your lesson plans! Thanks! -tricia

*Special thanks to Gloria Xu of Chinapax for being such a great facilitator!

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