See Her Elected (SHE) the feminist, community-led, rural initiative to support women into politics in the Midlands and NorthWest was crowned the winner of the 2021 Innovation in Politics Award in the Democracy category. It is the first time Ireland has won this prestigious award.
The award was announced in Brussels on Wednesday, December 1st by the Vice-President for Democracy and Demography of the European Commission, Dubravka Šuica. Members of the See Her Elected team including Dr Michelle Maher and CEO of Longford Women’s Link, Tara Farrell and Mairead O’ Shea, Communications Manager were in Brussels to accept the award with Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage Peter Burke.
The annual Innovation in Politics Awards recognise creative projects from across Europe which break new ground to find innovative solutions for today’s challenges. The awards are presented to projects in recognition of their innovative projects based on European values of social balance, democracy, and human rights – regardless of their party affiliation or level of government.
A citizens’ jury comprising over 1,000 Europeans evaluated over 400 projects to determine the 90 finalists and winners in the Awards’ nine categories. See Her Elected beat off stiff competition to be selected as the overall winner in the Democracy category of the awards.