Profile - Sharon Bhagwan Rolls

Sharon Bhagwan Rolls

Sharon Bhagwan Rolls, a Fiji Islander, is presently the AMARC-WIN focal point for the Pacific region, serves on the Reference Group of the AUSAID Pacific Media Communications Facility, and is the Pacific region’s coordinator for the Global Media Monitoring Project. This follows from her demonstrated work experience in the area of gender and information communications technology. She holds tremendous experience in activism, advocacy, media, lobbying and use of information technology not just on ICT issues, but on peace, women’s participation in democratic processes and in general. Along with being a skilled net-worker, she is a consistent and important communicator of information for the Pacific women. As women’s media advocate, Sharon recognized the important need for women’s media in Fiji, and became a fulltime media professional in 1986, starting out in radio, and working her way up the ranks from on air presentation to award winning copywriter to station management level. During her employment with Fiji Television she also initiated, produced and presented a range of local studio based and live/event based productions, including several documentaries focusing on the women’s movement. By the end of 1999, she chose to leave the mainstream media and rededicate herself to the women’s movement.

As a Secretary of the National Council of Women Fiji, from 2000-04, Sharon recognized the need to strengthen women’s participation in decision-making structures that have too long excluded them, especially by initiating women in media training programs through the Council. In September 2000, she and others who had come together through the “blue ribbon” peace vigil, founded fem’LINKpacific, a women’s media NGO, to increase the visibility of gender issues and women’s stories within the context of crisis and to ensure conflict prevention by developing, producing, and distributing community media initiatives. In 2004, femLINKpacific launched Fiji (and the Pacific’s) first mobile women’s community radio project. Using a suitcase radio, this project is designed to ‘take the media to the women in their communities”, especially rural and poorer settlement areas.

Sharon has a keen interest in policy advocacy, and also been a member of the Fiji Government delegation to the UN Fourth World Conference on Women, where she also filed news reports for Fiji Television. In 2002, she was appointed by the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women to the expert group meeting on women and media. She has presented numerous papers and conducted training on a range of issues including women’s media advocacy, and the implementation of UN commitments to women, peace and security, especially through UN Security Council resolution 1325. Today she continues to lend her support and skills to a range of local charitable events.

Contact: femlinkpac@connect.com.fj