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Sixty-four women from around the U.S and the globe will be in New Haven next week for an intensive five day session on politics. It's put on each summer by the Women's Campaign School at Yale University. WNPRs Lucy Nalpathanchil has more
Patricia Russo is President of the Women's Campaign School at Yale. She says the school exists to achieve one goal:
"Getting more women running, and winning and serving in public office."
Russo says there simply aren't enough women in politics even though women make up half of the U.S population. Take Congress for example less than seventeen percent of lawmakers are women.
The school launched in 1994, two years after the so-called "Year of the Woman" when many women candidates were running for office around the country.
But Russo says women in public service hasn't grown exponentially since that time so a Connecticut group led by Westport resident, Andree Brooks, created the school dedicated to campaign training.
Russo says sessions are bi partisan and issue neutral. And each year twenty-five percent of the class slots are made up of international participants. She recalls a participant from last summer's class.
"We had a woman running for President from Cameroon. And she was delayed for two days getting to our school because her opponents had kidnapped her. So it really is an incredible educational opportunity and sharing to see and hear about the lives of women who run in other countries and all the odds against them. Yet they continue to run."
She says mentorship could help increase the number of women in politics in the U.S who want to make change in their communities
More information on the Women's Campaign School can be found here.
