Project Officer for Coordination, SRH and Gender (Maternity Cover for six months) – HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation

HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation Ethiopia is a registered charity operating in the working areas of Rural Infrastructure, Natural Resources Management, Support to Civil Society Organizations and Local Government, Skill Development and Education, and Emergency Responses. See also www.helvetas.org. HELVETAS Ethiopia is presently looking for motivated and competent professionals for the following position for a project entitled “UP-Women – Unleashing the Potential of Young Women” in Sidama regional state.

The UP Women project aims to contributing to bridging the gap young women/girls face to enter in strong career paths through improved opportunities for skills training through Integrated Functional Adult Literacy (IFAL) and short-term skills training in market demanded non-traditional skills and subsequently find (self-) employment with a decent income and in women-friendly training and working environments. This will be achieved through a combination of Integrated Functional Adult Literacy (IFAL), Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) knowledge, access and services, life skills and vocational skills training, and job placement (JP) schemes, that ultimately results in a gainful income, contribute to gender transformation and dignity for young women. The project would work both with public and private training providers with a results based financing (RBF) approach and would also contribute to developing their capacities.

JOB SUMMARY

The position holder is a maternity cover that has the responsibility to oversee implementation of all project components and plays a facilitation role for the UP-Women project at city administration level to ensure the proper execution of the UP-WOMEN project at Hawassa City administration level. Additionally the project officer has an additional role of overseeing the gender and SRH component of the project at a later stge.

As project site coordinator, the position holder will facilitate community awareness raising sessions, selection/recruitment of girls and young women and linkage to IFAL and TVET centers and support subsequent (self) employment.  S/he builds the capacities of girls and young women through formation of solidarity groups, linking to appropriate training and service centers and help them acquire relevant skills and education, social inclusion, and gender equity, provide information and communication sharing best practices. S/he also promotes gender transformation through awareness raising, engaging relevant actors including community leaders, role models, active participation of youth etc. She/he establish and maintains a close working relationship with stakeholders and the implementing partners (government, training providers and others).

The position holder, additionally has the role to provide technical assistance and capacity building on gender and SRH development to the UP-women project to city administrations project participants, staffs and stakeholders. She/he will proactively identify gaps, consolidate best practices in the field and share lessons to all concerned. The Officer will ensure that standard quality training, guidelines and tools are adopting consistently that are gender transformative and ensure young women’s and girls’ priorities are integrated uniformly.

Roles and Responsibilities: 

Planning, awareness raising and targeting

• Conduct awareness raising campaign for beneficiary registration of IFAL participants using different mechanisms; door-to-door promotion, women role models, community groups and/ or audio messaging, engaging family members;
• Facilitates targeting of disadvantage girls and young women based on the criteria developed jointly by stakeholders through full engagement of relevant stakeholders in targeting process;

• Identify the needs of girls and young women’s during the recruitment phase, help them to develop personal development plan and support to realize their plan;
• Facilitate linkage with public and private sectors at local and various levels, building relationships with the community, youth and partners;

• Ensures that all activities related to project are implemented with full participation of respective city level partners and the communities.

Create linkage with TVETs, IFAL centers, SRH and establish youth solidarity groups

• Link selected girls/young women with TVETs/PTPS for skills training particularly in non-traditional skills to enable them to continue their journey to gainful employment;
• Follow up TVETs and private training providers to provide quality skill trainings particularly in non-traditional skills that are relevant to young women for gainful employment;
• Establish youth solidarity groups that serves as a plat form for undertaking dialogue on SRH, gender, information exchange, saving and lending; and gradually develop/grow into youth enterprise;
• Follow up and support solidarity groups to conduct saving and provide credit to members, and subsequently form network / linkages and enterprises developed;
• Follow up and support IFAL operations, TVET and PTPs training delivery through regular visits to center and training sites, collect feedback from trainees and trainers, monitoring and verification;
• Follow up and Support complementary soft skills training provision through partners including life skills, negotiation skills, and/or job skills;
• Conduct gender-related awareness creation trainings for target young women in targeted kebeles, particularly on social norms, SRH behaviors, stigma and prejudice, life skills,  in developing sexual behaviors;
• Promote and Support SRH service centers’ services particularly SRH programs for the young women to access in their locality;
• Plan and organize community mobilization platforms and awareness creation events on Gender and SRH issues;
• Conduct employment verification for TVETs and PTPs and submit all paperwork in a timely fashion;
• Provide mentorship and coaching to girls and young women’s in the course of developing enterprise;
• Work closely with the private sector and other stakeholders to establish business relationships and understand their needs and priorities as well as opportunities for collaboration;
• Foster relationships with IFAL centers, SRH centers and TVETs. This includes spending time at sites to meet with teachers/administrators, observe students in site setting, talk with administrators about the students’ progress, and execute recruitment and retention strategies;
• Conduct site visit to SRH centers, TVETs and IFAL centers to check attendance rates, problems encountered by young women, venue of training, youth feelings;
• Support self-employment efforts by girls and young women through business skills, entrepreneurship skills, inclusive finance services and ongoing coaching and mentoring;
• Support youth groups to access relevant skills and services from respective actors including business licensing, production/market places, MFI services, business advisory etc.;
• Facilitate trainee exchange/ experience sharing visit through engaging successful women’s/role models, mentorship programs etc.

Monitoring, reporting, learning and Networking

• Develop and review activity plans with supervisor and colleagues, partners, and stakeholders;
• Assist in preparing quality reports as required by donors and counterparts, by contributing progress reports, lessons learned, and case studies for youth livelihoods activities;
• Collect and compile basic information on youth and youth solidarity groups and record youth’s progress;
• Ensure that all activities related to youth training are implemented with full participation of respective partners, Women, Children and Youth Affairs Offices, job creation commission, TVET agency, education and health Bureau, and other stakeholders as applicable;
• Responsible for collection of monthly progress data from youth saving groups and using the same data to update the project saving groups MIS.

Gender Equity and Diversity

• Make sure that all trainings and capacity building activities take into account the needs of female youth in terms of training topics, methodologies, timing, location, and other aspects, and all project activities are gender transformative;
• Ensure that gender considerations—and particularly female youth’s access to information, services, finance, and markets, as well as other aspects of women’s empowerment—are incorporated into all youth assessments and activities.

A) QUALIFICATION:

• University degree in Business studies, Social Science, Development Studies, Teaching, Agriculture, Economics, Sociology, Community development and adult education, rural development, business Education, Business, developmental psychology, economics, or related fields.

B) EXPERIENCE

• At least four years’ experience working with coordinating and facilitating development intervention.
• Experience in TVET and youth employment.
• Strong experience in Business/Entrepreneurship interventions among urban youth populations.
• Prior experience in working with local youth organizations and businesses in the private sector.
• Willing to ride motorcycle and have motorbike license.

C) TECHNICAL SKILL

• Strong youth development knowledge and experience
• Detail-oriented, ability to multi-task and manage time well
• Prior experience working with international NGOs and local Partners is preferred.
• Familiarity with TVET, Life skill training, Adult literacy program, SRH, gender
• Ability to work with minimal supervision.