Project Officer- Gender and SRH – UP Women 53 views

Job Description: Project Officer- Gender and SRH – UP Women

HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation Ethiopia is a registered charity operating in the working areas of Rural Infrastructure, Natural Resources Management, Support to Civil Society Organizations and Local Government, Skill Development and Education, and Emergency Responses. See also www.helvetas.org. HELVETAS Ethiopia is presently looking for motivated and competent professionals for the following position for a project entitled “UP-Women – Unleashing the Potential of Young Women” in Sidama National Regional State.

Description

The UP Women project aims to contributing to bridging the gap young women/girls face to enter in strong career paths through improved opportunities for skills training through Integrated Functional Adult Literacy (IFAL) and short-term skills training in market demanded non-traditional skills and subsequently find (self-) employment with a decent income and in women-friendly training and working environments. This will be achieved through a combination of Integrated Functional Adult  Literacy (IFAL), Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) knowledge, access and services, life skills and vocational skills training, and job placement (JP) schemes, that ultimately results in a gainful income, contribute to gender transformation and dignity for young women. The project would work both with public and private training providers with a result based financing (RBF) approach and would contribute to developing their capacities.

Under the supervision of the Senior Project Manager, the Gender and SRH Officer, will provide technical assistance and capacity building on gender and SRH development to the UP-women project city administrations project participants, staffs and stakeholders.  The position holder will support and coordinate gender analysis and contribute in gender transformative training curricula development and women friendly training provision. She will proactively identify gaps, consolidate best practices in the field and share lessons to all concerned. The Officer will ensure that standard quality training, guidelines and tools are adopts consistently that are gender transformative and ensure young women’s and girls’ priorities are integrated uniformly. The officer will support and contribute to identifying gender gaps in implementation areas to identify key issues, social norms and barriers and to make recommendations on how to address gender and youth related concerns and challenges.

 Major Roles and Responsibilities

Planning and implementation

·         Support the development of gender transformative Curriculum for IFAL and TVET

·         Support the process of labor marker survey to make it  gender transformative

·         Work to identify role models and engage them to raise awareness about benefits of changed social norms

·         Work with other officers to make the selection criteria in consideration of gender, conduct awareness creation programs support and engage Young women, men, girls, and boys that can serve as change agent.

·         Enhances the awareness and knowledge of traditional leaders and influential community members on gender equity and women’s empowerment

·         Along with other officers, develop youth friendly dialogue guide more specifically the inclusion of   gender and SRH elements in the discussion guide

·         Supports site coordinators  in rolling out gender discussions by solidarity groups

·         Supports customary institutions able to influence, practice and monitor gender equitable norms including addressing gender biases and gender-based violence

·         Conduct Gender Climate assessment of training providers including TVETs, PTPs, IFAL centers

·         Facilitate trainee exchange/ experience sharing visit through engaging successful women’s/role models, mentorship programs etc.

·         Conduct gender-related awareness creation trainings for target young women in targeted kebeles, particularly on social norms, SRH behaviors, stigma and prejudice, life skills,  in developing sexual behaviors,

·         Closely follow and support young women’s/girls –friendly training and services at TVETs, PTPs, IFAL and SRH center

·         Gather information and understand key gender issues in the implementation area focusing on boys and girls (e.g GBV, Early child marriage, SRH and others) and adopt strategies to address them as necessary).

·         Plan and organize community mobilization platforms and awareness creation events on Gender and SRH issues,

·         Ensure SRH  service providers assessed, identified, capacity assessment conducted, and capacity support provided in delivering youth-friendly SRH services

·         Work with SRH service providers to adapt knowledge materials, and Service delivery mechanism developed and link with target group

·         Provide regular follow up for solidarity groups to continue conducting Dialogue sessions

·         Provide technical support to the project targets on gender, sexual and reproductive health component of the project

·         Providing training about young women/girls friendly SRH services to SRH centers

·         Facilitate linkage and work intensively with SRH center and facilities to increase young women’s and girls’ access and practice to reproductive health services on SRH

·         Facilitate and support SRH and gender material provision for IFAL centers and TVET/PTPs, in collaboration with the project  and health facilities/women and youth sectors

·         Promote and Support SRH service centers’ services particularly SRH programs for the young women to access in their locality

·         Create and maintain smooth working relationship with government partners and other stakeholders and link program activities with the existing government structure

·         Actively participate in trucking the success and best practice documentation process of the project

·         Make sure that project target groups access SRH services through solidarity groups

·         Work on SRH visibility and services provision including appropriate signposts that are women friendly

·         Regularly conduct gender audits as per the checklist prepared jointly and support improvement ongoing basis

Planning, monitoring, reporting, learning and Networking

·         Develop and review activity plans with supervisor and colleagues, partners, and stakeholders

·         Ensure that activities are carried out according to approved plans and that corrective actions are taken in a timely manner

·         Assist in preparing quality reports as required by donors and counterparts, by contributing progress reports, lessons learned, and case studies for youth livelihoods activities

·         Document innovative project activities related to Gender and SRH components that can be scalable and achieve  systemic change

·         Ensure that all activities related to gender and SRH components are implemented with full participation of respective partners from region to city administration including  Women, Children and Youth Affairs Offices, and health Bureau, and other stakeholders as applicable

·         Explores and participates in networks and gender-related task forces at the regional and local levels

·         Supports the documentation and use of project gender learning into evidence-based policy influence

·         Identifies, establishes and maintains productive relationships with like-minded non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the region

 Gender Equity and Diversity

·         Design, promote, and/or implements training curricula and capacity building activities that take into account the needs of female youth in terms of training topics, methodologies, timing, location, and other aspects

·         Ensure that gender considerations—and particularly female youth’s access to information, services, finance, and markets, as well as other aspects of women’s empowerment—are incorporated into all youth assessments and activities.

Job Requirements

Qualifications:

• BSc/MSc, development studies, gender studies, Sociology or other relevant field.
• 7 years of work experience in areas of youth, gender, women empowerment, skills development and education, enterprise development.
• Experience in conducting needs assessments,  field program implementation and business development
• Experience building capacity of community groups, local organizations, or others
• Highly developed computer skills (Word processing, web applications)
• Excellent written and verbal communication in English
• Knowledge of business and marketing practices and operations
• Firm commitment to teamwork, gender equality, participatory approaches, and sustainable development
• Respect, accountability, courage, excellence, partnership building, commitment building, pro-active problem solving, analytical ability

This job description summarizes the main duties of the job. It neither prescribes nor restricts the exact tasks that may be assigned to carry out these duties. This document should not be construed in any way to represent a contract of employment. Management reserves the right to review and revise this document at any time.