Watch HER founder Natasha Guynes on Montgomery County, MD, Channel 21. Learn more at MontgomeryCommunityMediaTV.org.

Natasha Guynes, 35, is president and founder of HER Resiliency Center, a nonprofit for vulnerable young women. She lives in Washington. I’m going to thumbnail-sketch you for a second, and I’m sorry about that. You went from being a commercial sex worker to working on Capitol Hill. I moved to D.C. when I was 20.

This week, she’s launching a non-profit called HER Resiliency Center. It will help young women 18 to 25 years old get housing, healthcare, education and employment. I’m the most proud and the most free I’ve ever been in my life,” Guynes said. “HER Resiliency Center is the best thing I’ve ever done.”She’s assembling an office

The students got to hear from a survivor firsthand. Former Capitol Hill staffer Natasha Guynes escaped from a bad home situation to the District when she was 20 years old. She started dong escort work, and descended into a world of prostitution and drug, “I experienced a lot of traumas, physical abuse as a child

“Drink a beer, smoke a joint. But lay off the crack, it will rot your teeth.” That was the advice Natasha Guynes remembers receiving from her estranged father while she was high on crack and cocaine. At only 20 years old, Guynes had wanted to get as far away as possible from her family in