3 weeks to go!

The members of QHO Guyana 2011-2012! Kelly, Alyssa, Arash, Jamie, Sydney, Beth, Leslie, and Joe.

There are now only 17 more days until Project Directors leave for Guyana, and 23 days until the Peer Educators arrive! After nearly 7 months of practice teaching, fundraising, applying for grants, revising the curriculum that we teach, and learning about the country and its culture, it's hard to believe that we will all be finally arriving in Guyana so incredibly soon!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Queen's Health Outreach (QHO), it is an entirely student-run NGO at Queen's University, Canada. Members of QHO are dedicated to promoting health through needs-based peer education initiatives both locally and internationally. The Guyana project specifically is QHO's longest-running initiative and was established in 1989. Each spring, groups of Peer Educators travel to Guyana for 8 weeks to teach in numerous primary schools, high schools, youth groups, and community organizations. Our curriculum consists of lessons about physical health, substance abuse, sexual health, mental health, communication, and leadership, all of which are specifically catered to the communities that we work in.

This year's Guyana project consists of 2 Project Directors (Kelly and Jamie), 4 Peer Educators who will teach in Georgetown (Arash, Beth, Leslie, and Sydney), and 2 Peer Educators who will teach in New Amsterdam, a pilot teaching location (Alyssa and Joe). Peer Educators will be working with the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport in Guyana, as they share our goal of reaching young people.

This blog will be used by the Peer Educators while they are in Guyana as a means to communicate their experiences on project, from May 6 to June 29, 2012.

- Kelly (one of the QHO Guyana Project Directors, 2011-2012)