Livelihood Officer at SOS Children Villages

Position Summary

• The Livelihood Officer will provide technical and management support to families on the programme to develop and implement community-based sustainable livelihoods initiatives via either promotion of employment-oriented initiatives and enhancing skills or engaging in income-generating activities.
• He/she will work to strengthen caregivers and young adults’ livelihood capacity to achieve sustainable income generation and be able to attain self-reliance.

Responsibilities

• The livelihood officer will give Priority attention to interventions that would have immediate or short-term positive effect on the family’s socio-economic wellbeing, aiming to reduce their vulnerability; e.g. access to start-up support for job creation, access to low-interest loans for micro-business development, individual skills training, targeted vocational or entrepreneurship training, job placement, internship, business expansion support, etc.
• Support families to identify ‘gaps’ in attaining self-reliance while linking it to the keys to self-reliance based on the development needs of each child within their care
• Support families to establish set goals, milestones with timelines and develop actionable plans to achieve the defined set goals to address the identified gaps
• Ensure that the organisation keeps its commitments, in terms of support services committed to in the FDPs action plans;
• Empower families to have improved household income to actively support the development of their children and be self-reliant
• Support young adults and caregivers in setting up viable small-medium scale businesses with good business plans and link them to other funding sources for business scaling-up and expansion
• Implement skills-based innovative sustainable livelihood community initiatives that have a direct and immediate or short-term positive effect on the family’s socio-economic activities, aiming to reduce the family’s vulnerability and increase their chances of being self-reliant
• Identify weaknesses and strengths in the livelihoods activities and map the best way forward to enhance strengths and mitigate adverse impacts or weaknesses;
• Ensure gatekeeping and case management guidelines are followed in providing specifically tailored interventions targeted at supporting families to attain self-reliance
• Conduct activities in a community- and rights-based, participatory manner, maintaining an Age, Gender and Diversity (AGD), and conflict-sensitive approach for community engagement
• Ensure timely and quality progress and financial reporting by partners in line with agreed templates and schedules
• Monitor programme implementation of partners (contractors, consultants, grantees) in accordance with agreements, work plans, deliverables, and timelines
• Carry out regular reviews of the situation of the families and the support provided to them by the programme
• Contribute to the realisation of sustainable income generation for families to provide quality care and protection for their children

Qualifications, Experience and Skills

• HND / BSc Degree in a relevant subject area, such as Business Management, Entrepreneurship, Community Development, Social Work etc
• Minimum of 1 year of experience in the field of livelihood, community engagement and youth development within the NGO/INGO sector
• Understanding of child development issues, including knowledge of child rights, child protection, child welfare, childcare and parenting; and relevant local and national laws, regulations and protocols
• Proven experience with working with teams across diverse locations.