Website Launch will increase Pacific Women’s
Perspectives on the World Wide Web says femLINKPACIFIC
On Tuesday 24 April 2007,
femLINKPACIFIC: Media Initiatives for Women launches its new website, which has
been developed as a key component of its Regional Media Project for the
promotion of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, titled, Women, Peace and
Security:
“The development of our website,
the revival of our regional femTALK 1325 publications, monthly ENews bulletins
as well as the translation or localization of UN Security Council Resolution
1325 on Women, Peace and Security are all part of an exciting new regional media
project which is connecting women’s peace building and media initiatives in
Fiji, Solomon Islands, Bougainville and Tonga with the rest of the world through
the World Wide Web. Our current partners in this project are Vois Blong Mere
Solomon, Leitana Nehan Women’s Development Agency (Bougainville) and The Legal
Literacy Project of the Tonga Catholic Women’s League, and now with the website,
we will be eagerly looking to strengthen our virtual links with other women’s
media initiatives, and advocates of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, such as
the International Women’s Tribune Centre and the NGO Working Group on Women,
Peace and Security, who have been critical global partners of our organization
since our establishment in 2000,” says femLINKPACIFIC’s Founding Coordinator,
Sharon Bhagwan Rolls.
femLINKPACIFIC has been a strong
advocate for the use of appropriate and accessible Information Communication
Technology, and in 2004 introduced femLINKPACIFIC’s mobile ”suitcase radio” as a
information and communication vehicle to ensure women in local communities are
provided with the necessary information and communication channels to increase
the visibility of their leadership for sustainable development and
peace:
“We have purposefully taken our
time to develop our website because first of all it is critical to ensure once
you have a website that you undertake regular content updates and we just have
not had the human resources to address that. But, more importantly, the
information and communication channel which has far more appropriate for the
women in the rural communities and those without computers or internet access
have been our community videos, the mobile community radio stations, and other
traditional media forms,” says Bhagwan Rolls
In fact, the new website will be
closely linked to femLINKPACIFIC’s other media initiatives, in particular its
suitcase radio content:
“Now that we have the website, we
have a team of wonderful young women whose skills and capacity we have been
investing in to develop and produce radio content for their weekend broadcasts
in Suva as well as post produce rural broadcast content, they will be assisting
us in creating the audio content for our website, and that is what is exciting
for us. The voices of women from
femLINKPACIFIC is an affiliate
organization of the National Council of Women Fiji, a member of the World
Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) and a member of the Fiji NGO
Coalition on Human Rights.
The website launch will also
coincide with the staging of the “Regional Consultation on Women, Peace and
Human Security in the Pacific” (Organized by the
According to Bhagwan Rolls, the
Regional Media Project on UN Security Council Resolution 1325, has come about
because of the recognition that peacebuilding cannot succeed if half the
population is excluded from the process because despite advances in
understanding the links between gender, development, human rights, Peace,
security and justice, this remains limited to many who enjoy the luxury of
accessing information and using advances in communication technology to
communicate with decision makers:
“This project is also a further
opportunity to create greater visibility of Pacific Island women’s viewpoints,
visions and voices within the global community,” she said, “By using UN Security
Resolution 1325, which reaffirms the role of women in prevention and resolving
conflicts – from community to national level, as our platform for our media
initiatives, we will also endeavor to provide critical links to other gender
equality commitments in particular the UN Convention for the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) as well as the Millennium
Development Goals, to assist national and regional decision makers to enhance
their inclusion of women into their national development or reconstruction/
transformation plans.”
The website address is www.femlinkpacific.org.fj
For more information please
contact:
Sharon Bhagwan
Rolls
Coordinator
Phone: 679 3310303 / 679 9244871
(Mobile)