EQUIPPING WOMEN FOR THE 2016 NATIONAL ELECTIONS

Forum for Women in Democracy has trained 30 female leadership mentors from the districts of, Kabale, Kibaale, Kibuku, Rukungiri, Gulu and Luweero in campaign procedures and skills for winning the 2016 elections.

In a two-day workshop this week, women leadership mentors acquired knowledge and skills in effective campaigning procedures to enable them train and sharpen women candidates’ skills for successful engagement in the upcoming general elections in 2016. The leadership mentors who were selected according to their political and leadership experience had their knowledge enhanced on Gender and development, Women and Leadership, Women’s engagements with Political Parties, Running a successful Campaign, Fundraising for campaigns, communication skills as well as Developing a winning manifesto. These were readied as political consultants for the women candidates in their various districts as captured in the voice of one Santa from Gulu.

 “The way I came is not the way I am. In fact now, indeed am a political consultant. I had retired from politics into a business woman, but now, I will integrate economic empowerment of women with political empowerment as I train the women candidates”, Santa Joyce Laker, Gulu.

Development of the manifesto was the catchiest topic of the training, as it lays the gist of one’s overall campaign, containing the key objectives, message, slogan, party/ independence, key issues in the community one would like to address, and any strategies they would like to engage, in general answering the five Ws (What, Who, When, Where, Which & How). The trainer, Hon. Tezira Jamwa emphasized the need to strongly mentor the women who are standing on non-affirmative seats because these face more challenging forces against them since these seats are stereotyped as those for men in a strongly patriarchal society. The leadership mentors were also strongly advised to relate to the political contexts of the women candidates from the respective districts providing political advice to challenging experiences of the women candidates with all efforts tuned to victory in the upcoming 2016 national elections.

The training was organized under the Leadership Advisory Desk that was established by FOWODE with the objective of enhancing women’s ability to effectively participate in political and governance processes.  FOWODE is empowering women candidates to favorably participate in the upcoming 2016 elections and take up key decision making positions for more gender sensitive legislation, programming and development.

We believe that once women, young and old are empowered with knowledge and skills to participate effectively in political processes, where the role of women is recognized and they are able to use the skills acquired in decision making positions, then there will be an increase in the number of women elected on “non-affirmative seats” and the voice of women will be included in the formative stages of economic policy debates and legislative processes which will result into gender responsive policies and legislation in Uganda.