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Inspirational Young Women in Leadership & Politics

Hey everybody! I hope y’all have had a wonderful week. Week #4 in Washington D.C. has been incredible! This week was probably the busiest week myself and the organization will have all summer. We hosted 65 high school women for the Young Women’s Political Leadership program at Georgetown University. We had incredibly inspiring speakers come speak to the participants including Mayor Bowser of DC and Congresswoman Cheri Bustos. In order to provide some context around this program, it’s important to note that Running Start was founded in 2007 by Susannah Wellford. She had previously ran a political action committee called Women Under Forty. Ms. Wellford was passionate about bringing more women, and specifically young women into the political sphere and to start an organization that motivated women to run for office. Some of the growing pains that the organization has experienced would be that since there are other organizations in DC that have a similar mission such as She Should Run, Running Start really had to create a unique brand. Susannah and her team were able to do so by securing important partnerships with elected officials on Capitol Hill and with companies such as Microsoft.

The highlight of my week besides meeting so many super intelligent and bright young women was when my group and I saw Senator Kamala Harris in her office. We went to her office in hopes of talking to her, but we were told by the communications director that the senator wasn’t in her office because she was getting ready to vote. We had the opportunity to talk to Andy Vargas, a staffer who specializes in Latin American politics and mobilizing the Hispanic population to participate in civic engagement in the United States, for 15 minutes. All of a sudden, while we were meeting with Mr. Vargas, Senator Kamala Harris walked out into the lobby of her office, waved and smiled to me and the three other young women I was escorting. It was such a wonderful experience! We also had the opportunity to meet with each student’s Congressperson, a policy advisor in their office, or a staffer in their office. I had the honor of meeting Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, Chrissy Raymond (a policy advisor in Congressman Seth Moulton’s office), and I even caught a glimpse of Nancy Pelosi as we passed by the House floor.

 

I am so grateful for this incredible experience and making new connections!

Best,

Daniella Feijoo