Program aims to empower more women to run for Connecticut elected offices

More and more women are getting involved in politics, but they’re still typically outnumbered by their male counterparts.

Women hold 37% of the seats in the Connecticut General Assembly. According to U.S. News and World Reports, that ranks 18th in the nation.

A program called ElectHer seeks to change that.

“They teach us how to network professional, they teach us how to do our elevator speech and they teach us various campaign strategies,” said Valeryn Fernandez, a senator in Central Connecticut State University’s student government and a leadership coordinator in the women’s center.

ElectHer is a program put on by Running Start, a nonprofit organization that encourages more women to run for office.

ElectHer is a one-day crash-course provided at colleges all over the country, including CCSU.

Rep. Kate Farrar (D-West Hartford), who helped organize ElectHer and still helps with CCSU’s annual event, said the program teaches female college students how to run for and hold office.

“One of the things we make clear in elect her is that as a student, as a woman who is a young woman leader, you have everything that it takes,” Farrar said.

That includes teaching women how to network and campaign.

Students got to hear from both Farrar and New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart.

“It is incredibly important to empower young women with the skills and confidence needed to run for an elected position early on, and that is exactly what the ElectHer program at CCSU does,” Stewart said in a statement.

Farrar said many women in government got their start on a college campus, making ElectHer an important step in improving diversity in government.

Fernandez said she never thought about running until she attended ElectHer a couple of years ago.

“I feel like I was a different person when I came to college,” she said.

Fernandez also said she now wants to continue being a leader when she graduates in May, either in politics or some other form of advocacy.