Partner - ECOSAT Project at Mercy Corps

Purpose

• Mercy Corps Nigeria announces the availability of funding for local Civil Society Organizations as partners to implement the ECOSAT project in selected local government areas of Kano, Kaduna, Lagos, and FCT, Nigeria.
• The purpose of this Expression of Interest (EOI) is to disseminate information about the ECOSAT project and to identify Civil Society Organization (CSO) interested in working with Mercy Corps Nigeria as an Implementing Partner on the aforementioned project.

ECOSAT
The initiative is part of the Educating Nigerian Girls in New Enterprises (ENGINE) Programme developed by Mercy Corps through partner organizations to:

• Improve the learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy of marginalised out of school girls aged 17 to 23 years within a supportive environment.
• Support the transition of marginalised out of school girls to the next phase of education and/or economic opportunities.
• Improve the employment readiness skills of boys and men through the provision of financial literacy and life building skills training.

Objectives
The ECOSAT project is a sustainable capacity-building project tailored to use evidenced based learning activities and delivery models. The ECOSAT partnership aims to achieve the following:

• Improve the learning outcomes of 600 out-of-school girls (OSGs).
• Establish girls/young women clubs across the four project states for peer-to-peer leaning.
• Provide scholarships for 150 marginalised girls to enable them return to school or successfully pass their school leaving examinations - WAEC (West Africa Examination Council) and NECO (National Examinations Council) in Kano, Kaduna, FCT and Lagos.
• Provide financial literacy and life skills training to 400 boys and youths from the implementing states through existing boys/men/youth clubs.
• Provide Strategic Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) to the gatekeepers (parents, husbands, community/religious leaders) in raising awareness to promote girls education and economic empowerment.

Intervention Mix
Provide Literacy and Numeracy classes to Out-of-School Girls through the Safe Space approach:

• ECOSAT aims at improving the learning outcomes of out-of-school girls (OSGs) in Kano, Kaduna, FCT and Lagos. The CSO will target 600 marginalized girls across project locations and set up safe spaces for improving literacy and numeracy of the beneficiaries
• Beneficiaries who have never been to school will be linked to Agency for Mass Education and/or other education agencies available in the state to access adult literacy classes.

Establish Girls/Young women clubs across all Project States:

• In an effort to ensure sustainability, the CSO will establish girls/young women clubs across the four project states. These clubs will serve as platforms for providing peer-to-peer learning and will facilitate transfer of knowledge among marginalised girls within the implementation communities
• The clubs will be established in year 1 and strengthened throughout life of the project. Through the girls/young women clubs, educational materials will be distributed to enhance the girls learning experiences.

Provide Scholarship to Beneficiaries:

• ECOSAT will provide scholarships for 200 OSGs (100 in year 1 and 100 in year 2) to enable them return to school or successfully pass their school leaving examinations - WAEC (West Africa Examination Council) and NECO (National Examinations Council)
• Extremely marginalised girls who are unable to pay their examination fees will be selected to receive this scholarship. The CSO will facilitate the selection of beneficiaries for the scholarship within the implementation communities.

Deploy Financial literacy and life skills training to boys:

• The project aims to mainstream gender by addressing key barriers to boys’ education and empowerment along with the girls. Through ECOSAT project, the CSO will facilitate financial literacy and life skills training for 400 boys and youth (200 in year 1 and 200 in year 2) through existing boys/men/youth clubs across implementation states.

Advocate for Girls’ Education and Empowerment:

• The project will work with an array of diverse actors at the state and federal levels to remove barriers to girls education through an innovative advocacy and behavior change communication approach tagged “SHEro”. Through targeted strategic BCCs, awareness on existing gender, education and child protection policies will be created
• This approach will be implemented in line will local context and state existing gender/girls education policies. Key issues that affects marginalised girls per state will be highlighted and addressed through SHEro approach.

Eligibility Criteria
The organization to be considered should meet the below criteria:

• Only a legally registered non-governmental organization (NGOs), community based organisations (CBOs) and faith-based organization (FBOs) that is currently implementing activities in Girl Child Education with focus on marginalised in and out of school girls in the focused states are eligible.
• The organization should have the capacity of mainstreaming gender through the involvement of marginalised boys and men.
• The organisations must have a physical presence in these focused states.
• Partnerships between NGOs/FBOs/CBOs and/or NGOs networks are strongly encouraged to respond to this call for expression.

Interested and qualfied candidates (Civil Society Organizations) should follow the Application Procedure below:

• Complete organizational Questionnaire Form. Click Here to Download Form (PDF)
• Attach a Covering Letter from your organization according to the following guidelines:
  • Title “Partnership application for ECOSAT project.
  • Mandate of the organization
  • History of the organization
• Statement on commitment for:
  • The proactive incorporation of delivery of the Program into the organization;
  • A multi-year collaboration;
  • Commitment to ensure financial sustainability of the project through a viable business plan and,
• Signed by the head of organization
• Total file size should not exceed 10MB

Please scan your Covering Letter and registration certificate and e-mail it to: ng-submissions@mercycorps.org with your completed EOI form. If possible, combine them into one pdf document.

Send a hardcopy of the Cover Letter and completed Expression of Interest to:
Mercy Corps Nigeria,
35 Patrick O. Bokkor Crescent,
Off Ebitu Ukiwe Street,
Jabi,
Abuja.

Note

• Only applications received from organizations that have submitted all required documentation will be contacted after a review by a panel committee. Applications will be notified accordingly.
• This is not a Request for Application (RFA) nor a commitment from Mercy Corps Nigeria to fund any organization that responds by sending an expression of interest.