Eighteen teenage girls from Park Heights sit in a circle at the St. Ambrose Outreach Center in the Park Heights neighborhood of Baltimore City, a neighborhood known more for its heinous statistics -- including alarming drop-out rates and teenage pregnancy numbers -- and less for the bright smiles that fill the room.

The girls are giving positive affirmations to each other and to the adult volunteers as a way of greeting each other. They are generous with compliments and are eager to share. Any parent of a teenager would feel like they stepped into the Twilight Zone if they entered this room.

As the girls pour their libations into a plant and offer their thanks, it becomes clear that this is a space where their gentle spirits and positive energy are celebrated. It's a place where they don't have to pretend -- a place where they're safe. Meshelle Foreman Shields, comedienne, mother, wife and director of the Goal DIGGERS: The Sankofa Project provides this safe haven for them.

Shields, a native of this Park Heights neighborhood, began this program with the help of an Open Society Institute Fellowship. Shields believes that this will be the ultimate transformative experience and hopes to have a program like this become a national model. The girls are being followed by a videographer that will document this transformation.

The success of this project could change the way educators look at inner-city, largely black educational systems and how they work with and educate their students. If identity is at the crux of student achievement, particularly young girls, and having confidence inside and outside of the classroom, then the national model will have to change as it relates to African-American children.

It's long overdue for an overhaul.

Shields took a moment to talk to Aol.Black Voices about this innovative program: