I am extremely grateful to be one of the first recipients of the SCWLA’s scholarship to attend the Southeastern Institute for Women in Politics training workshop. I left the training feeling empowered and inspired. The training provided the nuts and bolts of running for office and winning! The presenters were very knowledgeable in their respective areas, which included academics, campaign consultants, and a former woman House member.
The day began with a very informative session on statistics relating to women running for office and the very encouraging find that women are more likely to win if they run. While women are more likely to win if they run, they often time feel less qualified to run than their male counterparts and are less likely to make the decision to run.
During the training we learned how to manage a campaign and how to develop our platforms. We also learned how to organize and gather campaign support and fundraising strategies. A highlight of the day was learning how to use social media and the internet in campaigning. We learned how programs such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other communities can be instrumental in finding and connecting with supporters and potential supporters.
The training attendees included women from various backgrounds, some of whom had run for office and held positions on their local county councils and school boards. It was great to be surrounded by women who had already ran for office and were looking to take their leadership a step further and who could share nuggets of wisdom with the group. The training has made me more confident in reaching my future professional goals of one day empowering, through training, women in the developing world in their bids for political office.
I am a pro bono lobbyist and the State Chair for CARE USA, an international humanitarian organization whose mission is to eradicate global poverty through focusing on the educational and health needs of women and girls. I have volunteered on several political campaigns and served as a community organizer in North Carolina for the last general election. I have observed elections in Azerbaijan and Kosovo. I currently serve as diversity fellow at the Charleston School of Law and will begin work as a legal advisor in Turkey for refugees from Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan beginning in November 2011.
