'The Wire' actress Sohn helping inner city youth

>> we all remember her. in a scene from "the wire" that show centered on detectives in baltimore 's inner city . sohn went from playing a street cop to making a difference on the streets. i want to bring in sonja sohn . in addition to her role, she created the nonprofit that is committed to change. you stayed in baltimore and cofounded rewired for change to help young people that live under the threat of gun violence . why did you stay?

>> well, after shooting the show in baltimore and being really affected by the people and folks and communities that we shot in. the fellas and i really didn't feel as though we could completely disconnect from the circumstances that we were portraying in the show, we felt connect and passionate about the issues and the folks and the town. and once we, we went out to do vo voter work in 2008 . we got a chance to see what kind of social capital we carry in the communities and we could influence people to go out and vote and volunteer to work on campaigns. you know, become engaged. and we thought it irresponsible for us to sort of ignore that and so we thought we would find a positive way to engage with the community using our celebrity.

>> rewired for change, for folks that are not familiar with the group, what sit that you do? well, what we target under served areas in urban communities, particularly baltimore right now and we use education and community building , training, to empower families and communities in those areas and us, our, we use our access to media so part of our mission is the social justice media advocacy that myself and the fells as that are the founding members participate in.

>> you have used multi-generational ptsd for people living in violence. explain that to us?

>> for example, some of the young people have spoken candior in our classes, it's for young people that have been arrested for, we use it for violence prevention and personal transformation, and they speak about the conditions they were brought up in. so, for instance, if you know, their condition -- you know being in a family that is living in poverty, that is -- that has experienced a number of challenging circumstances in the past from whether it be caused by oppressive structures or whether you go as far back as we, let's call it slavery. if you think about it, hundreds of years ago, there was a group of people whose ancestors come here under great durress and experience a great deal of trauma. that trauma gets passed down from generation to generation. so, that is multi-generational trauma. and being and growing up in stressful situations, or family generation after generation having to deal with that level of stress, leaves a mark on that family and it makes it difficult for future generations to actually overcome that. so, we believe there needs to be a comp henceive approach to actually producing better outcomes for high risk youth and families and communities. they are all a part of the same challenge and issue. you cannot separate one from the other.

>> actress and community activist, osonja sohn thank you for swinging by today.

>> thank you.