"Being born and raised in poverty with a future bound to end in the Gulf states as a laborer, I ended the cycle of all my family finding jobs abroad by going to school."
What's it like to be a teenager in school in Louisiana?
"For too long, girls have come last in the hierarchy of who gets attention and whose needs are addressed," says Christen Brandt.
The Youth Opportunity initiative, piloted in Chicago, comes to D.C. and Maryland.
