US study tour provides 15 Kuwaiti women with political empowerment
Kuwait’s Vision 2035 goal to promote more women in leadership positions
WASHINGTON, April 26, (KUNA): A two-week study tour, backed up by the Empower Kuwaiti Women in Politics (EKWIP) initiative, provided 15 future women leaders with an intensive training program focusing on essential skills in political campaigning, said an official Thursday.
In an interview with KUNA during their one-week tour in Washington DC before heading to Dearborn, Michigan, Director of Ibtkar Strategic Consultancy Dr Alanoud Al-Sharekh affirmed that the main idea of the initiative — launched by Ibtkar — was to “try and empower these women politically.” This is keeping with the State of Kuwait’s Vision 2035 goal to promote and engage more women in leadership positions.
She indicated that in Kuwait, “women with leadership positions in the public sector is 12 percent and in the private sector 15 percent so this is a problem across the broad.”
“Through this initiative we wanted to encourage women who might have the ambition but do not have the funding or the necessary skills to get a chance to learn from the best, locally and internationally, how to run a successful campaign and what you need to know both on a personal level and on a logistical level,” she remarked.
She added that this is a yearlong program and “unfortunately because it is a pilot we could only offer it to 15 women out of 70 applications that were received.” The 15 women are of different age groups that represent all the different demographics in Kuwait and they come from the private and public sectors with different interests.
Policies
In this regard, Dr Al-Sharekh said “some want to run for coops, some from municipalities and others for the National Assembly. Each in their own way is going to help change policies into a more friendly place for women.”
As for the aim for the visit to the US, she affirmed that the idea is to “take these women out of their day-to-day responsibilities, such as their children, their jobs, their social obligations.
“So to have two weeks just to concentrate on yourself and improving your skills is of extreme importance.”
During their weeklong visit to the nation’s capital, the team visited the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, think tanks, delegates, Arab-American congressional representatives.
The group also met with the best experts in the world on body language, media, self-presentation, image and learn from people who run NGOs and campaigns in the civil society space.
“These women have acquired a wealth of experience and it was really an eye opener for them to learn that it is difficult for women in the US and globally and that it is not just us who face these issues,” she remarked.
Dr Al-Sharekh noted that her message for the women out there is to “step up and seek the help you need. Funding is an issue and lack of skill is an issue but there will be women who are willing to help you to lend you their voice to give you a platform, so just do it.”
The 15 EKWIP future leaders, during their Washington DC stop, were also able to meet Kuwait’s Minister of Commerce and Industry Khaled Al-Rawdan, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and wife of Kuwait’s Ambassador to the US Sheikha Rima Al-Sabah and former MP Dr Aseel Al-Awadhi, who is now the first woman to be the Director of Kuwait’s Cultural Office here.