GOAL:
Change our energy future, by increasing the number of women who care about the impact of their energy choices and take action to achieve a robust renewable energy economy.
BACKGROUND:
WRISE has spent the last 10+ years building a solid network of women and men across renewable energy and particularly the wind energy field in the US and Canada. WRISE works on recruiting more women into renewable energy sectors and helping retain and advance the women that are already here, but we realize that with the network we have built we can do more. By working together across the network we can provide our experts with the necessary skills to share their experiences with other communities of women in a way that encourages those women to become actively involved in promoting renewable energy in their local communities, at the state level, and across the country.
PROGRAMMING:
WRISE launched Take Charge as a pilot program in 2015 in collaboration with the Wind Energy Foundation (WEF)’s Wind Ambassadors Program. Providing women with opportunities for speaker and media trainings connected and then engagement in speaking events and in-person meetings in their own state.
At the end of 2016 demand for programming grew dramatically from the women within our network and we decided to launch a new Take Charge Event in February of 2017 in Washington DC. That in-person event focused communications training, advocacy tools, and a look at how to run for office or support other women that are running.
With the success of the 2017 event the Take Charge Initiative continues with plans for another in-person event in 2018 and building a toolkit for our local chapters that want to host similar events focused on their own regions.