Heart of Gold: Former Prositute runs a Sucessful Program to Keep Women off the Street

This was a really inspiring article from the Washington Post about 50 year old Jackie McReynolds.

When Jackie McReynolds found out she was HIV positive, she looked back on her career as a DC prositute. There were such highlights as being gang-raped in an alley by three men, drug addiction and close calls with death. She decided to get out of sex work and got her online degree in human services and learned about issues of abuse and trauma for women.

She then started, The Angels Power Project, a 3 month intensive program that acts as an alternative for a jail sentence for prostitutes where they attend classes every day for several hours (a little like an AA format), have to pass multiple drug tests and learn life skills. McReynolds goes over practical things like how to get a job, how to dress for a job, computer skills, CV writing... all those good things.
While she struggled at first with getting money the program has been relatively sucessful and receives yearly funding.

The Washington Post article reads,
"Nakita Harrison, 34, a sex worker for nearly two decades, was in and out of jail before signing up a year ago. She now rents a furnished apartment from the group and works as a grocery cashier, her first legitimate job.

"She speaks our language," Harrison said. "She knows us and allows us to be ourselves as long as we remain respectful to her and the other women in the group."

Many of these women, ages 18 to 60, are mothers, grandmothers and even great-grandmothers. They would blend in easily in a grocery store line or at midweek church services. Their clothes are baggy, not tight. Instead of high heels, many go to work in tennis shoes. Most find their clients on the street, out in the open, with little protection from sexually transmitted diseases, violence and arrest.

Most of the women are trying to support their drug habits, and others are engaged in "survival sex" to pay the bills or buy food for their children, McReynolds said.
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"Putting these women in jail isn't going to solve the problem. They just become repeat offenders," McReynolds said. "They have to change from within." ..........

McReynolds tells the women that low self-esteem is behind their behavior, and she embraces the role of disciplinarian. She hugs a crying woman who says she missed classes to tend to her sick mother but added a month to the woman's required stay. "You have one last chance," McReynolds says. "You can't help your mother if you don't help yourself first."