Nancy’s guest on this episode is Sarah Jakle, the founder of DemocraShe, a national leadership program for underserved high school girls, and for every public policy skill they teach, like public speaking or lobbying Congress, they pair it with a brain-science skill to keep girls from getting knocked off their path. The results: girls who can picture themselves as future candidates more than double in the program, and alumnae who have been the youngest elected officials in Maryland.Nancy and Sarah get into: the "amygdala skills" — like inner best friend and inner champion — that Sarah's girls use to interrupt fight-or-flight in real time; why the entire program is peer-led, run and built by teenagers themselves; and "DemocraShe Congress," a role-play where girls from different states have to yes-and their way to real, cross-partisan legislation.Sarah Jakle is the Founder and Executive Director of DemocraShe, a nonpartisan national nonprofit empowering historically underserved high school girls to be our future leaders, voters, civically engaged citizens and elected officials. Previously, Sarah served as the Get Out The Vote Director for the California National Organization for Women and as the National Outreach Director for Field Team 6, leading efforts for mobilizing women and innovative voter registration. Empowering women to hold political office has been an interest since Sarah first interned at the Women’s Council of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in college.Thank you for being a listener!Stay up to date on New Faces of Democracy by signing up for the newsletter here.If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on the podcast, send us an email at info@newfacesofdemocracy.org.If you like this podcast, please subscribe/rate/review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It makes a huge difference!Follow New Faces of Democracy on Instagram, Threads and Bluesky.