School for Young PolitiSHEans: peculiarities of women's participation in political processes were studied in Kharkiv

On August 28-30, the first module of the training course on political leadership for women took place in Kharkiv.

Trainers:
- Aliona Hurkivska – expert on public policy and parliamentarism analysis, expert on coordination of international technical assistance projects for the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine (2019), and director of the Independent Centre for Policy Analysis (2018-2019).
- Dmytro Drobot – analyst, a member of Kharkiv Anti-Corruption Centre Board, a fundraising expert, co-founder of "Maidan healthcare professional" initiative; successfully worked with candidates during the political campaigns in the 2004, 2014-16, 2019-20 elections.
- Yevhen Lebedev – the head of an NGO, civic activist, expert in working with local authorities and organizing direct actions, and working with electorate.

The module was devoted to the analysis of power system in Ukraine, the development of local self-government, the study of political ideologies, the basics of fundraising, and cooperation with NGOs. As part of the event, practical work was performed to train the acquired knowledge.

During the training, participants worked out the following topics:
- How the state works: legislative, executive, judicial branches of government
- Political ideologies
- Active listening technique
- Communication with electorate
- The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine: legislative process
- Lobbying and advocacy, tools for influence on public policy
- Who a deputy of the local council is and what is his/her status
- Local elections 2020: interpretation of the new electoral legislation
- Decentralization: what it is for and what would change after elections
- Political crowdfunding: how to raise UAH 3 million in two weeks
- Work on a street: the practice of electioneering in teams, the analysis of working with strangers, the tools of managing critical, problematic, difficult and non-standard situations.

Besides, with the trainers' help, the group has acquired knowledge on what a successful election campaign is and how it should be implemented.

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