Young Women's Political Leadership Program

Young Women’s Political Leadership Program:
July 15-19, 2009 Washington, DC
Application deadline: February 16, 2009

http://www.runningstartonline.org/leadership-program/index.php

The Young Women’s Political Leadership Program encourages high school girls to channel their leadership into politics. Running Start is hosting our second annual program this July to train high school girls in political leadership skills and to plant the seed that they should run for office. Fifty girls chosen for their leadership potential from around the country will come to Washington, DC for this exciting program. The girls are chosen from public, charter and private schools and we pride ourselves on recruiting a diverse group of young women to attend our program. The program is entirely free of charge, and travel scholarships are available.

The program, which takes place at American University over 4 days and 3 nights, allows the participants to meet extraordinary women leaders of diverse backgrounds and to learn about the importance of having more women in political leadership and of running for office themselves. They learn by doing through the highly interactive sessions. By the end of the summer retreat, they will have gained confidence in their own leadership abilities, and be ready to bring their leadership to their schools and communities. The girls learn about political leadership by working with inspirational women leaders, including Congresswomen and other elected officials and leaders in business, media and the law.

The program trains the girls in important skills necessary for political leadership including:
# Public Speaking and Presentation: Students will learn how to structure a speech and adjust to an audience, as well as learning and practicing the importance of posture, tone and answering post-speech questions.
# Advocacy: Students will learn the art of persuasive speaking and will practice basic debate and advocacy.
# Persuasive Writing: Students will learn critical thinking skills that correlate to the kinds of applications necessary in advocacy and politics. The girls will examine campaign materials, floor speeches, as well as grammatical and literary tactics that are often incorporated into successful persuasive writing.
# Campaigning: As a culmination of the program, the students will create a campaign for themselves tying in the aspects learned from the workshops throughout the leadership program, and they will give campaign speeches to the class and their parents.

Our goal is to create political leadership programs for high school girls across the US, so that young women can learn the value of political participation and the importance of their leadership in this area.

THANK YOU TO OUR 2008 TITLE SPONSOR WAL-MART FOR MAKING THIS PROGRAM POSSIBLE!

* Apply to the 2009 program in Washington, DC
* Bring this retreat to your community