See Her Elected, the award-winning Government funded programme to support women in rural constituencies to become county councillors has gone from strength to strength with over 500 women throughout Ireland signing up for free online workshops, events and resources over the past year.
Continuing that success, See Her Elected will provide a free ‘Introduction to Politics’ course beginning on January 11 2023, while a new series of foundation workshops will also take place from January 23 2023.
Through the SHESchool model See Her Elected provides free online community education to women in their homes, and a clear pathway for women taking them from learning about local government through every practicality of running for local office.
The first online SHESchool began in May 2020 with a total of 46 women registered. From that modest base, SHE continues to gain traction and to date has delivered training to over 800 women from every county in Ireland.
The organisation has also published the ‘See Her Elected Guide to Running in the 2024 Local Elections’ and this publication is supported by a comprehensive series of workshops.
This past year has been extremely busy for See Her Elected as over 800 women throughout Ireland have registered for various workshops including the ‘Introduction to Politics, Foundation and Strategy’ workshops. The ‘Introduction to Politics’ course starting on January 11 2023 is for those who wish to start to building up knowledge about what politics is and how politics works. The classes will run twice on each date in a bid to fit into day-to-day life with a morning option from 10-11.30am and an evening option from 7.30-9pm.
The Foundation workshop beginning on January 23 2023 is for any woman who is considering running for local election in 2024 or indeed any woman who wants to become part of a campaign team to help another woman to get elected. This course examines key issues and building your profile - the toolbox: maps and stats (analytical work on voting patterns in your local electoral area while it also examines whether you should run for a party or Independent as well as tips for building your team.
On completion, you will be invited to join the Strategy Series which examines canvassing, campaign, and communications strategy.
In the past year, See Her Elected has also built on successful collaborations with County Councils throughout Ireland as a way of bringing women onto the SHE pathway to the 2024 local elections. Examples include work with Westmeath County Council to write ‘A More Inclusive Politics for Westmeath’ publication, which was launched in June 2022 by Minister Peter Burke.
Current councillors, especially those co-opted into seats after the 2020 General Election regularly participate in SHESchool and the work with the party women’s networks has grown the number of women councillors within SHESchool.
Those interested in joining the ‘Introduction to Politics’ course on January 11 or the Foundation workshops beginning on January 23 are asked to email [email protected] or ring 086 0320455 to register their interest.
