Seventeen women standing in the October council elections are among the alumni of a 'pathways to politics for women' program that is making rapid change.
that helped to equip American women for a run at politics, the dynamic Ms Schwartz got the University of Melbourne on board with starting a similar program aimed at boosting the number of women running for any level of Australian office.
I'd been working in Uganda, where they had ... 40 per cent of women in their Parliament in 2015 – Australia had just 29 per cent.In 2017, Susanne Newton, a former aid worker, found herself both participating in the program and putting the skills she was learning in it into practice in real time as she campaigned for Darebin council.
Confidence was one of the key things she picked up from female politicians she met in the Pathways program. "Pretty much every woman MP would say: 'It's really hard, and this is why it is hard and what happened to me but you should do it anyway'," said Ms Newton, now a mentor in the program. Ms Allen says the Pathways course, at which she returned to speak this year, offers vital support: "It's really important for women to have role models, and those role models have been missing [in significant numbers]."
"Sometimes we think, 'I'm not ready yet, I'm only 26', we doubt ourselves, but I am ready, very qualified and already have a diverse range of skills."
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