When a girl's decision involves the community: the realities of adolescent Maya girls' lives in rural indigenous Guatemala.

Adolescent Maya girls are among the most vulnerable, marginalized sub-populations in Guatemala, a country that is largely young, indigenous and poor. Adolescent Maya girls have limited access to secondary schooling, opportunities to work or earn an income, and sexual and reproductive health information and services. This article explores the extent to which adolescent Maya girls are able to adopt what they have learned in a community-based skills-building and sex education programme in isolated rural, indigenous Guatemalan communities. This is presented through an interview between the authors, who met and worked together in the Population Council's programme Abriendo Oportunidades (Opening Opportunities) for girls aged 8-19 years. The interview discusses what can be done so that indigenous adolescents not only obtain the sexual health information they need, but develop the skills to make decisions, communicate with their peers and parents, and exercise their rights. Much culturally and linguistically sensitive work must be done, using a community-based participatory approach, so that young people who do want to use condoms for protection or contraceptive methods not only have access to the methods, but the support of their families and communities, and government-sponsored sex education programmes, to use them.