Headstart Program Assistant Officer at Skills Outside School Foundation

About SOSF:
The Skills Outside School Foundation is the leading African education, employability and entrepreneurship organization with a vision for a productive human capital driving transformational socio-economic development globally through our core pillars interventions, data and advocacy over the last 8 years.

ABOUT Headstart Program:
The SOSF Headstart program is a sector-based entrepreneurship and livelihoods program for vulnerable and low-income populations. Phase 1 of the program "agropreneur" is focused on farmers across several high value agricultural produce – cassava, plantain and vegetables to enhance overall yields, productivity where integrated value chains are viable and improve overall farmer income / livelihood. The program provides (i) technical and business skills capacity development (ii) access to critical inputs e.g. tools, herbicide, fertilizer and improved seed varieties (iii) funding and business advisory support and (iv) continuous monitoring and evaluation.
Job Description
The Headstart program Assistant will work alongside other members of the Headstart Department to plan, execute, monitor, and evaluate the Headstart Project and the opportunities associated with it.
The Assistant will work with the members of the department to manage the liaison with the professional mentors, partners, trainers, and ensure they are kept up-to-date via newsletters sent every quarter to be developed jointly with the media and communications officer.

The Officer will perform a wide range of duties as outlined below:
Project Planning:

• Plan the Entrepreneurship, skills training and relevant legislation
• Develop new initiatives to promote the activities of the Headstart department in line with the organization objectives.
• Develop projects evaluation framework to assess the strengths of the Headstart Project and identify areas for improvement.
• Ensure all feedback evaluation forms by the trainers and participants of the Business skills workshops are completed, collected and assessed through collaboration with the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer.
• Ensure monitoring activities such as sourcing, screening, onboarding and mentoring of professional business mentors are monitored to Access progress.
• Ensure all project documentation and materials is provided to the participants as due.
• Ensure Policies and documents produced by other organisations of relevance to our work on Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurship opportunities are available and accessible by participants.
• Ensure Potential organisations including other NGOs, Corporate Organisations, International Organisations and multilateral agencies that the Foundation can collaborate with to further expand its reach and opportunities are onboarded as partners.

Organize the projects:

• Provide weekly and monthly reports to the Board of Trustees and the Head of Executive Council.
• Create and maintain the project management calendar/schedule and file all project documents.
• Coordinate the business training Workshops and mentoring engagements between the trainers, mentors and the participants.
• Update the partners and donors on project milestones.
• Liaise with the team on all matters.
• Develop a working relationship with all the professional mentors.

Lead the projects:

• Liase with partners/sponsors and other stakeholders to understand how the delivery of the workshops and the Headstart Project can be enhanced.
• Coordinate the Quality delivery services among different project activities to increase effectiveness and efficiency.
• Monitor the project activities on a regular basis and conduct a quarterly evaluation according to the project evaluation framework.
• Report evaluation findings to the Head of Executive Council and Board of Trustees and recommend changes to enhance the project, as appropriate.
• Provide the necessary information to the Media and Communication Officer to allow for appropriate and targeted social media updates on the Headstart Department activities.

Stakeholder Management

• Development and successful delivery of stakeholder engagement plans in accordance with the overarching stakeholder engagement strategy
• Manage stakeholder mapping and prepare communications to stakeholders and respond to stakeholder enquiries
• Provide briefings and support for meetings with stakeholders
• Attend client-facing meetings, collaborative planning workshops and report to client on progress

Grant Writing/Fundraising

• Lead on researching, developing and preparing grants proposals and fundraising for Headstart projects.
• Study and understand the history, structure, objectives, programs and financial needs of the organization.
• Research grant opportunities from government and non-government agencies.
• Draft grant proposals and supporting documents based on the funding requirements of the organization.
• Submit proposals to grant coordinators for approval.
• Respond to internal and external queries on drafted and submitted proposals.
• Maintain positive relationships with fund providers and other stakeholders.
• Maintain records and submit reports related to grant opportunities.

Control the project:

• Provide information on finances and expenditure of the projects and attach supporting documentation for the board, funders, and Head of the Executive Council.
• Ensure that the Headstart Project operates within the approved budget.
• Monitor and approve all budgeted project expenditures.
• Work with Head of Executive Council to manage the disbursement of funds for all project activities and other general administrative functions of the Headstart Department.
• Maintain and keep financial records of all projects and the Headstart Department activities, including monitoring the expenses of the Headstart Department and ensure they are up to date.
• Provide required information to have invoices generated and submitted to funders according to the timelines

ABOUT YOU
You possess the following:

• University degree in project management, business administration/Management or a related field of study. 
• 0-2 Years of project management, business management/administration, Grant writing/ Fundraising or otherwise exercise.
• Knowledge of project management.
• Experience managing stakeholders.
• Agricultural management related experience.
• Basic knowledge of grant writing and fund raising.
• Strong strategic, analytical, and project management skills: demonstrated ability to take responsibility for a diverse number of projects and to complete them in a timely manner with limited supervision.

Abilities

1.    Proficiency in MS Office applications (Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint). 

2.    Proficiency in the use of computers for 

• Word processing 
• Simple accounting 
• Databases 
• Spreadsheets 
• E-mail 
• Internet 
• Google Docs, Sky Drive, DropBox 

JOB BENEFITS
At SOSF, we value diversity and inclusion – in backgrounds, and experiences and also encourage a gender Friendly work Environment. We offer:

Paid Time off (PTO) which includes;

• Sick (sick leave based on the duration of sickness after a verified Doctor’s report)
• Exam (A Maximum of 1-week paid examination leave annually)
• Annual (25 days for full-time staff and 20 days for contract staff)
• Maternity (3 months for confirmed female staff)
• Paternity leave (5 working days for male employees)

Group continuous Learning and Development: As part of our commitment to organizational learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are more effective, efficient, and relevant to the communities they serve, we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Skills outside foundation as well as themselves. The team has a learning and development WhatsApp group where all posts are shared.

External Engagement policy: SOSF Encourages people to have other external engagements outside SOSF which support the vision and mission of the organization as well as their interests.

A flexible working structure that entails a 90% Remote and 10% Physical work structure.

SOSF has an excellent career growth pathway for its staff through its 2-promotion cycle in a year.