School for Young PolitiSHEans: an ending conference was held in Kyiv

A conference was held in Kiev on December 25, during which the best participants were gathered together and results of the project events were summed up.

Participants shared their impressions of attending the educational activities and talked about how they were going to use the acquired knowledge and skills. According to their feedback, the project helped them not only to systematize knowledge about the political sector, but also to understand, analyze and weigh the main challenges and risks that may arise for women politicians in Ukraine and ways to overcome them.

More specifically, outlining the benefits of the trainings, participants noted the information on the political sector opportunities for women in Ukraine, systematization of knowledge and skills on the peculiarities of functioning of political process, group and individual work, which helped them not only to practice the acquired knowledge, but also to communicate directly with electorate in different cities.

Several participants of the first training-course nominated themselves on the local elections in October and four of them have been elected to local councils of their towns as independent candidates. That we consider as a sign of success of the project and congratulated them with this achievement during the Conference.

Besides, during the event, participants discussed the possibilities, mechanisms and means of conducting competent, professional sociological research to study the electoral field and political sympathies of voters in specific settlements.

The mechanisms for building a successful political campaign and the importance of civil engagement and civic activism that can strengthen the positions of politicians or political parties / forces / associations were also discussed.

In the end of the event, participants received certificates confirming their successful participation in the Project.

The event was implemented in coperation with German organization "Media in Cooperation and Transition" (MiCT) using the German Federal Foreign Office resources.