It’s a challenge going through adolescence as you try to figure out who you are and what you want to be, deal with peer pressure and parental demands or neglect, find a job, make the grade at school, fit in, not get left out, and experience first love and first rejection.

To help make that exciting but difficult journey on the road of a life easier, Teri Lynn Shaw, a board member of the Antioch Unified School District, has launched a TV show called “Highway 4 Peace.”

Taped at Los Medanos College by students from the Deer Valley High TV production class, the one-hour show is televised Thursdays at 5 p.m. on Comcast channel 24. The second show, which was recorded Saturday, includes Antioch Youth of the Year Keoreyontay “Kiki” Saunders, Deer Valley High student Sabrina Seniga and Gospel rapper Young Brett (Be Different) as well as performances by singers and dancers.

“I was just looking at all of the things going on with the youth nowadays – I just thought they needed a voice,” said Shaw. She decided last fall that the show “would be a forum that showcased kids’ talents as well as being a place to air their concerns and their views. I believe kids listening to kids will get answers.”

Shaw contacted LMC President Pete Garcia, who agreed to provide the college’s recital hall for show taping, then contacted Deer Valley video teacher Kiel Olff, who also got on board with his students. “That collaboration helped bring this to life,” said Shaw. “I wanted it to be a good television show.”

She decided to call the show “Highway 4 Peace” to emphasize that it’s not just for Antioch youth, but includes all of East County’s young people. “My love is for all children,” she said. “I don’t turn anyone down.”

Shaw is no newcomer to helping youth. Since 2002 she has mentored teen girls in her Club PRIMP program. And since joining the Antioch school board in 2006 she has been involved with the nearly 20,000 students in the district.

But Shaw has also found time to throw herself into this new video venture. “I am very excited about it,” she said. “I am giving it 110 percent. I will do that to the very end so that kids have something in East County. It’s productive, it’s fun and it’s designed just for them.

“A lot of kids slip through the cracks because they don’t have anyone to listen. It doesn’t have to be (because of) a broken home – especially out here having a lot of commuting parents. By the time they get in the house they are getting dinner going and whatever else they have to handle when they get home and get in bed early for the next day. There’s just not a lot of time to get quality check-in with their children.”

For more information, call Shaw at 925-727-7862, e-mail highway4peace@yahoo.com or visit www.myspace.com/highway4peace.