Workshops aimed at getting more women elected start next week

A series of online workshops aimed at getting more women elected to local government begins next week. The initiative is spearheaded by programme manager with See Her Elected, Dr Michelle Maher from Mullingar.

“With only nine months to the next local elections in June 2024 our Fast Track to Election series of workshops offer a high level of practical support to women in monthly workshops with See Her Elected,” Dr Maher said.

Registration for the workshops is now open – you can sign up at seeherelected.ie or email on admin@seeherelected.ie or phone 086 0320455.

It is intended that every woman participating will have a solid foundation in place for their campaign, canvassing, communications and social media strategies.

They will be able to hit the ground running as candidates or as campaign team members to help get a woman elected in their area.

“There will be continuous support available from See Her Elected, both between and after the workshops end in December, right up to the local elections,” Dr Maher said.

The workshops will also help equip women with practical skills, as Mairéad O’Shea the communications manager with See Her Elected explained. “As well as focusing on campaign and canvassing strategy, our workshops will equip women to develop a communications strategy such as writing a press release, public speaking, radio tips, social media strategy and using paid social media promotions,” she said.

The workshops run once a month on Mondays at 8pm, Wednesdays at 7am and Thursdays at 1pm; pick the day and time that suits you best. All participants will also receive free hard copies of the See Her Elected Guidebook to Running in the 2024 Local Elections.

Women hold only about 26% of council seats around the country. The 2019 local elections revealed that women accounted for 35% of candidates contesting seats in urban areas, but just 23% in more rural areas, according to research by the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI).

“We want to see more diversity in our rural county council chambers. As it stands, there are few women councillors and virtually no representation of minority communities.

"Our aim is to increase the numbers of women in local politics in rural counties, where anything from 78% to 95% of the elected local authority councillors are men. We need our chambers to be more reflective of society and we need to see more women in politics in order to have more balanced decision making,” Dr Maher said.

See Her Elected is a grassroots organisation built on the ethos of women learning and supporting each other with a specific focus on rural Ireland. It is funded by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.