Scarlett Hawkins

Sponsoring Rotary District: 9910
Worked in: Vanuatu, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Australia
Degree from: Monash University
Future plans: "I am eager to work within the United Nations to operationalize the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, with a focus on reducing violence against marginalized groups and improving accountability to affected populations.”

Scarlett Hawkins is a gender-based violence specialist with a passion for building and sustaining resilient, inclusive systems across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, particularly to meet the needs of people subject to intersecting forms of disadvantage.

Scarlett has worked for both the International Organization for Migration (IOM) – the UN Migration Agency and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Vanuatu, specializing in the elimination of gender-based violence. With IOM, this work was contextualized through humanitarian emergencies, migration, and labour mobility; and in UNFPA, through the lens of sexual and reproductive health.

Scarlett supported the humanitarian response to category-five Tropical Cyclone Harold in 2020, and subsequently worked closely with the Vanuatu National Disaster Management Office to institutionalize standard operating procedures and guidelines focused on gender-based violence in emergencies, disability inclusion, and child protection into emergency planning and response. She has developed and facilitated gender and vulnerability training for national stakeholders in cash and voucher assistance, and provided technical input to the government policies, including Vanuatu’s inaugural Mental Health Strategy and National Gender Equality Policy.

Prior to the United Nations, Scarlett worked as a consultant providing capacity development to civil society organizations in strategy, advocacy, and communications. She has served as Vice-Chair of the Board at CHOICE for Youth & Sexuality in Amsterdam, contributed to the establishment of gender equality non-profit organizations in Melbourne and London, and provided mentorship in narrative advocacy to 60 young people from 18 countries.

Scarlett is enthusiastic about social innovation, impactful storytelling, accountability to affected populations, and the perennial question about how the United Nations agencies and stakeholders can restrategize their approaches to improve efficiency, outcomes, and impact. In her spare time, Scarlett writes fiction novels which explore the themes of humanitarian emergencies and international development.