Over at Rising Voices, the outreach arm of Global Voices, David Sasaki has just announced the latest round of Rising Voices grant recipients. Among them is the Rising Voices project’s first Caribbean grantee: “Diary of an Inmate”, a Jamaica-based project which will attempt to counter the veneration of badboys and gang leaders by training prison inmates to blog and podcast. The project’s founder, Kevin Wallen, who has been doing exemplary work among inmates in Jamaica’s penal institutions through an organisation called (Students Expressing Truth), outlined the project as follows:

Through blogging, inmates will be able to tell their stories. They will be able to paint a realistic picture of life behind bars and the consequences of crime. Currently, Jamaica’s music and media idolize the ‘badman’ or ’shotta’ and portray as role models those who have been incarcerated. Many of our youths now think that prison is a ‘cool’ place to be, until they themselves are faced with the harsh truth. The Diary of an Inmate blog will allow all Jamaicans to learn about the realities of Jamaica’s overcrowded prison system with the hope that this will counteract the false ideas implanted by the media.

Congrats to Kevin and the “Diary of an Inmate” project. I look forward to seeing the results of this interesting experiment. And to the rest of you potential Caribbean applicants: what are you waiting on?

Technorati Tags: jamaica, global voices, outreach, prison, blogging, caribbean