Job Vacancies at Save The Children

ROLE

The Education Assistant will be a part of the Education team. He/she will assist the Education team with activities such as Enrolment, back to learning campaigns, community engagement with SBMCs, among other responsibilities assigned regarding enrolment and retention in schools. S/he will also support in ensuring Accountability in supported communities including information sharing, participation, and ensuring efficient feedback and response mechanisms.

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

• Implement delegated reaching out of school project in line with proposals, strategies and donor requirements, and ensure high technical quality.
• Ensure that procurement and distribution of materials and equipment is timely and in line with SCI policies and procedures; ensure accuracy of portfolio inventory (assets, supplies, materials)
• Contribute to assessments (baseline, midline and endline, needs, market)
• Ensure accurate project documentation, including collection of monitoring data and tracking of progress on output indicators; utilize data to contribute to reports as requested by management
• Facilitate relationships with communities and community leaders to ensure buy-in and Do No Harm
• Supervise and manage the teachers, including facilitation of teacher training
• Provide support on youth/adolescent programming, including, life skills, basic literacy/numeracy, and alternative/accelerated education.
• Support identification of needs, and development and facilitation of training programmes for teachers, PTAs, SBMCs
• Facilitate recruitment of volunteer teachers and learning facilitators in the project
• Contribute to proposal and strategy development through input on needs/gaps
• Any other task relevant to the position as requested by the line manager.
• Contribute to the preparation of timely and high-quality progress and end of projects narrative and financial reports which are in accordance with the donor reporting schedule and formats.
• participate quarterly follow ups and progress review meetings to address key performance issues from the reports.
• Ensuring that the program experience is represented and given recognition at stakeholder meetings, workshops, donor, networks and any other engagements.
• Develop and maintain regular channels of communication with partners and key stakeholders at all levels (Community, LGEA and State).
• Effectively manage projects design and study processes which include assessments, baseline and evaluation studies, putting in place a functional Activity Tracking Table.
• Ensure that the projects quality benchmarks are followed.
• Collecting and managing complaints and feedback in close coordination with MEAL team and Projects Officers.
• Ensure regular monitoring of projects results, documentation of projects case studies, lessons learnt, significant changes and best practices and coordinating learning and reflection meetings/sessions
• Ensure an effective programs/ projects monitoring, and evaluation systems is in place.
• Monitor programs/ projects activities to ensure quality, timeliness and adherence to both Country Office and international Save the Children policies and procedures.

CORE BEHAVIOURS

• Work closely with Education Officer and Education Coordinator, to ensure planning of day to day implementation, update on spending, implementation, monitoring, and documentation and reporting for ROOSC project.
• Ensure timely implementation and budget performance in line with the projects plans and budgets.
• Effectively support the teachers in proper service delivery are in line with ROOSC Project design and Save the Children International planning guidelines and ensure compliance with the agreed work plans and that programme objectives and targets are being realized in line with the funding proposals.
• Ensure that ROOSC Project implementation are to the desired standards and on time.
• Maintain high standard of transparency and accountability in the course of programme implementation while ensuring integrity and timeliness of activities implementation in meeting programme objectives, compliance with donors & Save the Children policies.
• Provision of regular operations and implementation updates on project progress and challenges to allow for timely interventions and corrective actions by management.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

Essential

• Minimum of bachelors degree/ Higher national diploma in Education or other related fields of study
• At least 2 years of accrued working experience in program implementation in a National or international NGO and those applying partnership approaches is desirable.
• Experience in strategic thinking and planning skills, be able to set priorities, prepare manageable plans and to evaluate progress.
• Experience of working on TaRL and with Out of School Children (OOSC) with local partners and Local Government and State Authorities in the Northwest Nigeria is an added advantage.
• Strong analytical skills and strategic planning abilities.
• Ability to establish and maintain conducive collegial relations and perform effectively as a member of a team.
• Willingness to travel and work in hard-to-reach areas, occasionally under strenuous conditions.
• Computer literacy and excellent documentation skills are a must.
• Availability and willingness to work extra hours during times of humanitarian responses.
• Highly developed cultural awareness and ability to work well in an international environment with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures
• Ability to intervene with crisis management or troubleshooting as necessary.
• Highly developed interpersonal and communication skills including influencing, negotiation and coaching
• Excellent time management and planning capacity.
• Fluent English language skills (written and verbal) and Local language skills (Hausa, Fulfulde etc.).
• Experience of working in remote field bases with limited infrastructure
• Experiencing in managing and supervising others in logistics and procurement functions.
• Ability to synthesise and analyse information, and make clear, informed decisions
• Ability to build relationships quickly with a wide range of people, both internally and externally
• Strong planning, management and coordination skills, with the ability to organise a substantial workload comprised of complex, diverse tasks and responsibilities
• Cultural awareness, with strong written and spoken communication and interpersonal skills in English

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SCOPE AND ROLE PURPOSE: 

The Advocacy and Community Mobilization Officer will be responsible for the community engagements for ROOSC project. S/he will engage and mobilize local communities in Kaduna State to support the educational inclusion of out-of-school children. This role involves working closely with community leaders, families, schools, and other stakeholders to raise awareness about the importance of education, address barriers to school attendance, and support the enrolment and retention of out-of-school children.

Alongside the Advocacy and Community Engagement Coordinator, the role will collaborate and work closely with the Education Coordinator, GESI Specialist, MEAL Coordinator, Child Protection officers, Advocacy, Campaign and Policy Manager/Learn, Project Director, Field Manager, and Community Mobilization and engagement Manager – ensuring that there is an effective and coordinated team spearheading SCI Nigeria’s influence towards an accelerated positive change for all children, specially girls, to access quality, safe, inclusive, uninterrupted and free education.

S/he will work closely with focal points on the implementation of the advocacy and community engagements. 

S/he will coordinate and oversee the Community Mobilization Assistant to ensure monthly, quarterly and annual advocacy reports that feeds into CO and donors report. S/he will work closely with the Advocacy and Community Engagement Coordinator, the CO ACCM Unit to develop relevant materials, such as but not limited to policy briefs/briefing messages, concept notes, guidelines and undertake actions to create enabling environment and promote increasing government and community commitment and action on children’s rights to education. 

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

Community Engagement and Mobilization 

• Collaborate with the MEAL Coordinator, Education Coordinator and Advocacy and Community engagement Coordinator to conduct community assessments to identify out-of-school children and understand barriers to education.
• Work with the Advocacy and Community Engagement Coordinator and other TAs to develop and implement community mobilization strategies to increase awareness and support for education.
• Organize community meetings, forums, and events to engage stakeholders and disseminate information about the project.
• Foster relationships with community leaders, parents, teachers, and local organizations to gain their support and collaboration.

Advocacy and Community Engagement 

• Jointly develop, coordinate and manage Advocacy and Community engagements plans, in order to influence relevant stakeholders at the local level and achieve required changes at local government levels.
• Lead Advocacy and community engagements at local government and community levels on Universal Basic Education, develop key messages for influencing state policy reviews, processes and discussions.
• Champion, promote, coordinate and manage the implementation of out of school children Campaign Strategy in collaboration with the Advocacy and Engagement Coordinator and Advocacy, Campaign and Policy Manager Learn.
• In collaboration with the MEAL Coordinator, s/he shall track, measure, monitor and evaluate the quality of integration and implementation of advocacy and community engagement in the implementation of the project. 
• Contribute to the development of annual work plans, budgets, reports and document case studies and success stories on the ROOSC project. 
• Ensure maximum visibility of Save the Children according to the branding guidelines both internally and externally across relevant platforms. 
• Ensure that children are at the heart of advocacy and community engagements activities, and they are an integral part of Save the Children’s campaigning work.
• Ensure proper documentation and dissemination of major activities, successes and learnings related to ROOSC.

Strengthen Networking and Partnership

• S/he shall represent SCI Nigeria in local level engagements, and shall create, nurture, strengthen and maintain strategic partnership with other key stakeholders in the education sector at the LGA level. 
• Work with Media and Communication team, Education Coordinator, Safeguarding Officer and Project Director to develop case studies for the project and ensure that these meet Save the Children Child Safeguarding Policies
• In collaboration with the CO Media and Communication Manager, Advocacy, Campaign and Policy (ACP) Manager/learn, s/he will identify story ideas on lessons learned and experiences for development of success stories and other communication materials.
• Explore opportunities to communicate about ROOSC project deliverables and its impact internally and externally, with a wide variety of state and national level stakeholders using innovative methods.
• Act as SCI Nigeria’s representative at local government level as required, mainly in events relating to education advocacy, and community engagement. 
• Develop and maintain a professional network for governance issues within project state and within SCI Nigeria.
• Provide support and guidance to community-based organizations and parent-teacher associations to strengthen their capacity to support education initiatives.
• Contribute to the bi-weekly ACCM Country Wide coordination meeting and produce stories and case studies for publication in the monthly Jebb Times.

Others

• Participate in all ACCM activities, meetings, annual review workshops and trainings.   
• Perform other duties as assigned by the Advocacy & Community Engagement Coordinator, Project Director, Field Manager, ACP Manager/Learn or ACCM Director.\

SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

Essential

• Level of Education – Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences, Education, Community Development, or a related field.
• Experience: At least 3 years of experience in community mobilization, outreach, or education projects, preferably working with marginalized or out-of-school children.
• Language Requirements – English – Excellent with a good knowledge of Hausa language
• Level of IT Expertise Required – Excellent 
• Ability to write very good position papers and policy briefings
• Strong analytical framework to clearly articulate and communicate our policy positions.
• Ability to be strategic and proactive when required to be able to keep advocacy plans dynamic and aligned to new policy and political developments.
• Ability to clearly communicate and easily relate to local government authorities.
• Able to demonstrate positive attitude, diplomatic, negotiator, and team player.
• Experience of working in a multi-cultural environment and respect for diversity
• Comply with the requirements of Save the Children’s commitment to protect children in accordance with the Child Safeguarding Policy