#16DAYS: WOMEN’S VOICES BREAKING THE SILENCE

by Empowerhouse / Birgitte Jallov

16 women working with community radio to strengthen the voices and lives of women in their area

Sharon Bagwan-Rolls, Co-founder FemLINKpacific

Sharon Bagwan-Rolls has worked to give a voice and to empower women – young women, rural women, women living with disabilities and women in the LGBTQI circles – through engaging them in the media and getting an empowered and insightful voice. Through the organisation she co-founded, FemLINKpacific, she has helped found and form robust and sustainable women’s community media platforms in Fiji and other Pacific Island countries.

Sharon is a second-generation Fiji Island feminist working on the intersection of gender, media, communications and peace by supporting the development and production of appropriate and accessible media. Following a career in mainstream broadcasting, she co-founded FemLINKpacific in 2000. This became the basis for the development of a feminist media network which included the Pacific’s first women-led community radio network and the innovative Women’s Weather Watch information-communication system.

Sharon is a member of the Generation Equality Forum Civil Society Advisory Group and a taskforce member of the WPS-Humanitarian Action Compact building on her contribution to the UN Women-convened Civil Society Advisory Group, the first UN Women Global Civil Society Advisory Group, the High-Level Advisory Group for the Global Study on UNSCR1325+15 & UN Expert Group on Women and the Media. She was included in the 1000Peacewomen for the Nobel Peace Prize (2005) and received the 2014 NGO CSW Forum Woman of Distinction award in recognition of her dedication to enable and empower community media production in print, digital story-telling, online/social media, and television to increase visibility of women and young women’s viewpoints and realities.

EMPOWERHOUSE launches its contribution to the 16-day campaign by sharing 16 women’s community radio stories: unfolding how each broadcaster has been seeing positive change for women and girls – working intensely to eliminate violence against women and girls

#16DAYS: WOMEN’S VOICES BREAKING THE SILENCE – DAY 16

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