Assistant Technical Officer, Environmental Health at FHI 360

Job Description

• Northeast Nigeria is currently facing a growing humanitarian crisis with a vast number of Internally Displaced Persons in need of emergency assistance.
• These IDPs are living among host communities, lacking access to livelihoods and resources, ultimately leading to unprecedented levels of malnutrition and food insecurity. FHI 360 has been working in Nigeria for over 30 years and is now expanding activities in Borno state to respond to the IDP crisis.  
• FHI 360 is expanding its expertise by responding to this humanitarian crisis through integrated WASH, Health and Protection interventions

Basic Function

• The Assistant Technical Officer, Environmental Health will provide technical and programmatic support in one of the three field sites.
• Under the supervision of the WASH Coordinator, the Environmental Health Officer will monitor and train Community Volunteers on their hygiene promotion.
• Other responsibilities will also include training volunteers and community/camp leaders on safe waste management practices and providing support on activities related to environmental health at the health clinic.

Duties and Responsibilities

• In close collaboration with ATO-WASH, he/she shall be responsible to design, plan, implement and follow-up hygiene promotion activities such as training of trainers in hygiene promotion for community volunteers, WASH committee members and other stakeholders in LGAs in line with agreed work plan and WASH sector strategic plan.
• Plan and implement regular hygiene promotion activities in targeted locations/IDP camps.
• Disseminate environmental health, sanitation and hygiene messages using relevant media to beneficiaries in the area of assignment.
• Developing and evaluating the most appropriate IEC tools/materials for hygiene and health promotion activities.
• Participate to the monitoring of all the hygiene and health promotion, and community mobilization activities to ensure behavior change and project ownership by project recipients.
• Ensure active participation of the target beneficiaries and other local stakeholders, in close coordination with WASH sector partners at the field level to avoid duplication of efforts.
• Training of community management structures and hygiene promoters in the target communities as needed.
• Engage in the appropriate knowledge management (documentation and reports, sharing good practice, lessons learned, and knowledge/ information exchange) at all levels to foster learning, promote evidence-based advocacy and dialogue in the camps and communities.
• Sensitize population on good hygiene practices, focusing on hand washing, safe disposal of solid waste and excreta, latrine cleaning, diarrheal diseases prevention, etc. as adapted from time to time depending on the prevailing public health situations.
• This is not an exhaustive list of the duties and responsibilities of this post, and the post-holder may, from time to time, be required to undertake any other reasonable duties and responsibilities as requested.

Qualifications and Requirements

• BA / B.Sc in field related to WASH / Environmental health with at least 3 years’ post NYSC relevant experience with a sound understanding of hygiene in humanitarian relief settings.
• Familiarity with Humanitarian NGOs.

Knowledge, Skills & Attributes:

• Knowledge of WASH and humanitarian programming in emergency situations.  
• WASH technical expertise especially relevant to waste management and hygiene promotion.
• Ability to work well with others and to develop and maintain compatibility among project staff, subcontractors, consultants and recipients of assistance.
• Ability to manage tight deadlines and deliver high volumes of work with minimal supervision.
• High degree of proficiency in written and spoken English & Hausa languages. Understanding of Kanuri language is a plus.