Community Media Platform to Enhance Protection

Community Media is a platform to Enhance Protection in Emergencies

Saturday, April 21
Suva, Fiji

"Everyone is entitled to rights and the need to be protected in times of natural disasters," says Nandini Vandana a member of FemLINKPacific's Generation Next project who is one of the participants in an interactive learning and production workshop currently underway for young women producers and broadcasters working in Suva, Tavua, Nadi and Labasa.

The young media activists are working together to develop a series of communication messages based on recent experiences of women who were able and unable to access evacuation centres:

"Going to the evacuation centres, looking at their access to health facilities, availability of food and water as I saw four packets of biscuits shared amongst 300 plus people present in the evacuation centres," said Fane Lomani of Tavua.

It is important that persons with dsiabilities and other marginalised groups are also reflected in the productions said Sian Rolls, as the interactive learning and production workshop is also reviewing recent updates such as from Dorothy Bali at the Ba Seniors Centre who raised the issue of trauma as well as physical rehabilitation as priorities:

"As we hear that there is going to be another flooding, there is panic amongst us all. Many have just started to pick up the pieces and now we hear this news. I had a visit from two of our female members one of whom is from Elevuka and her house was under water. Today she was showing me her bruises n telling me how they struggled to get out of their house. Well let's hope and pray that we don't have to go through all this again," said Bali yesterday.

The activity is conducted in partnership with UN Women, the UN Gender Group and
the Pacific Humanitarian Protection Cluster and builds on FemLINKPACIFIC's Women's Weather Watch initiative.

The outputs of the training will inform community radio content development and production to enhance Protection in Emergencies and assist the FemLINKPACIFIC team
continue to communicate and promote gender inclusive messages throughout the year including through the use of their community media network.

Earlier, Elzira Sagynbaeva, UN Women Regional Programme Director had noted that it is critical to recognise that natural disasters impact women and men differently:

"Women are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which includes natural disasters, than men-primarily as they constitute the majority of the world's poor and are more dependent for their livelihood on natural resources that are threatened by climate change and natural disasters. Furthermore, they face social, economic and political barriers that limit their coping capacity,"

The participation of members of FemLINKPacific's rural community media network is also significantly important, says the UNWomen Regional Programme Director especially as women and men in rural areas in developing countries are especially vulnerable when they are highly dependent on local natural resources for their livelihood:

"It is thus important to identify gender-sensitive strategies to respond to the environmental and humanitarian crises caused by climate change."

Sharon Bhagwan Rolls, Executive Director, FemLINKPacific (www.femlinkpacific.org.fj)

ENDS

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