After graduating from Project Empowerment, three students test the job waters

Washington Post ^ | December 9, 2010 | Theresa Vargas

[Second Amendment First]

Patrice Taylor has spent her past few birthdays in court. At 25, she faced an assault charge after she punched a man in the face at a club. At 26, she was at the courthouse for a custody hearing that split her family. This year, she expects to spend her 27th there, too, fighting charges that she violated a civil protection order.

For most of Taylor's life, the legal system - with its "snobby" lawyers and "crooked" cops - has been a scary force with the ability to ruin your day or wreck your future. But now, two weeks after graduating from the Project Empowerment job-training program, Taylor is walking into the nerve center of that institution, a marble-walled building at Judiciary Square, passionately hoping for a chance to work for the same system she believes hasn't worked for her.

"Tell me about yourself," says Gale Rivers, a petite, kind-eyed woman whose desk is watched over by a poster of Barack Obama and the slogan "Change happened."

Taylor has arrived at the city's legal office from the District's most expensive job-training program, a last chance for some of Washington's most difficult unemployment cases. Rivers has seen a series of recruits from Project Empowerment and knows that some of them work as though their futures are on the line, showing up on time even during snowstorms. But others blithely dismiss her advice, such as how not to tuck in a dress shirt: one flap hidden and the other hanging out in defiance.

[Second Amendment First]

Part two.

From yesterday: Job-training program aims to empower the District's (DC) hardest to employ

[Second Amendment First]

Ping to part two.

[oh8eleven]

kind-eyed woman whose desk is watched over by a poster of Barack Obama and the slogan "Change happened."
That should read - "Sh*t happened."

[ClearCase_guy]

Is the goal here to take violent criminal offenders and give them government jobs so that they can lord it over the rest of us?

Great.

[dennisw]

This is just one Gubbermint sector training (edumacating) non-ADD yutes to work in another gubbermint sector or the tax leeching charity sector. This is my tax dollars being flushed down the crapper

All those factory jobs we let go to Mexico/China/Asia would come in pretty handy right now. We should have imposed tariffs ages ago and given producers tax incentives to stay here. Plus eliminate oppressive OSHA and EPA regulations . But Americans and most freepers have gone through “free traitor” lobotomies

[super7man]

This article is as stupid as the Yahoo article about the guy who blew the $13M inheritance. Advice: Don't go to clubs, work on your relationships and don't violate court orders and the "crooked" cops will probably leave you alone.

[kittymyrib]

The GOP needs to publish the amount of taxpayer dollars per “graduate” of this misbegotten welfare program. We need to defund sinkholes such as this one.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Hey, she’s just keepin’ it real, yo.

[Jakarta ex-pat]

there is only ONE window for educating.

Start before grade 7 (max).

After that, it is generally a complete waste of time.

[I Buried My Guns]

"Hey, she’s just keepin’ it real, yo."

Word!

[dfwgator]

Fo’ Shizzle!