Consultant - Content Development and Graphic Design at Mercy Corps

Background

• Mercy Corps has been present in Nigeria since 2012, focusing its interventions on humanitarian assistance, economic development, and conflict mitigation. With the ongoing insurgency in Northeast Nigeria causing the displacement of millions of individuals, Mercy Corps started its humanitarian response in 2014 to address the rising humanitarian needs.
• As the crisis has persisted, Mercy CorpsТ strategy has also expanded to address the root causes of the conflict and seek to build the long term resilience of communities with integrated programs focusing on governance, the recovery of markets and livelihoods, social cohesion and social protection, youth empowerment, and local conflict management.
• The Northeast Conflict Management and Stabilization (NE-CMS) Program is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to improve security and reduce support for violence in Borno State in Northeast Nigeria. Following two previous phases of the program starting in August 2016, the NE-CMS program entered Phase III in August 2019 for an additional two-year implementation period, which is expected to result in:
• Citizens are more civically engaged, and civilian government and security forces are more transparent and inclusive in addressing community needs around service delivery and protection
• Communities and citizen security forces have improved capacities to protect civilians in conflict
• Communities demonstrate improved trust and social cohesion within and between actors at the local level
• Local decision-making spaces and peacebuilding processes are equitable and inclusive of marginalized social groups, especially youth and women.
• The consortium aims to achieve these outcomes through a range of activities: engaging government and security forces in capacity building and mentorship, while supporting traditional leaders and communities to conduct advocacy and accountability activities; engaging non-state security forces and communities in dialogue, and self-protection initiatives; encouraging dialogue and psychological trauma healing among diverse stakeholders to generate trusting relationships, nurture reconciliation, and mitigate potential future crises; and establishing parallel safe spaces for women and youth to ensure that they can effectively contribute to peacebuilding. A key output expected of outcome one of NE-CMS as stated above is strengthening Participatory Governance. This assignment will contribute significantly to delivering this output hence the actualization of outcome one of the NE-CMS program.

Consultancy Objectives
The overall objective of this assignment is to:

• Undertake the production of creative, professional design and other deliverables related to producing Community Based Advocacy Training Facilitation and Sensitization Card.
• Adapt existing NE-CMS advocacy contents into the graphic design and produce the layout of the sensitization card using infographics, original cartoon figures and or pictures.
• Adapt the complete sensitization card into animated power point presentation for training of trainers purposes.

Skills and Experience Required of the Consultant
The consultant is expected to have the following skills and qualifications:

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates commitment to Mercy CorpsТ mission, vision and values
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability
• Willingness to integrate Mercy Corps corporate branding into products

Functional Competencies:

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to propose designs that convey messages that are creative, compelling and generate reflection on the topics covered
• Knowledge and understanding of gender-sensitive communications, ability to develop content that illustrates gender and social inclusion at a glance
• Expertise in graphic design software and cutting-edge technologies
• Demonstrated artistic drawing competence especially in producing illustrative amiable cartoon characters
• High level of attention to detail
• Flexible, collaborative attitude; understands the parameters of criticism and evaluation
• At least a Bachelor's Degree in Graphic Design, Fine Art, Communications Art, Industrial Art, or a related field
• Familiarity with spoken and written Hausa, Kanuri and English is desirable

Experience:

• Minimum five years of relevant professional experience in communications for development organizations, including experience in the preparation of publications, infographics, etc. related to advocacy, gender equality, youth development and womenТs empowerment is required
• Excellent design skills, including typography, art, layout, color theory, etc. (as demonstrated by samples submitted with application)
• Minimum five years demonstrated experience using software such as Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, PowerPoint,
• Keynote is required; with knowledge of infographics programs such as info. Gram, Canva a strong asset.