Associate Director of Programs – Regional & Partner Engagement

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS, REGIONAL & PARTNER ENGAGEMENT

ABOUT WITNESS

We are a global human rights organization, a collective of passionate human rights activists with (mostly remote) team members all over the world. WITNESS’ mission is to help people use video and technology to protect and defend human rights. We are a 35-person multi-disciplinary team with staff based across 5 continents. While we’re legally a non-profit that is registered as a 501(c)3 in the U.S, we are a global collective: our staff members (as well as consultants, interns, fellows and a vast community of partners and collaborators) are based around the world and reflect a group of activists with diverse skills and backgrounds.

WHAT WE DO

WITNESS pairs grassroots community support with advocacy at a systems level. Our team works holistically on a global scale to understand how communities are using and want to use video and technology for human rights. With a cellphone camera, anyone can become a human rights defender and expose injustice, making it harder for perpetrators to hide or for systems of oppression to remain invisible. But using video for community organizing, justice and accountability can be dangerous – videos can put defenders (or those they film) at risk, can be used against communities in court or deceitfully discredited by tired old power narratives. Filming is almost never enough – for videos to make a difference they need to work alongside strong advocacy or legal strategies; they also need to be created, preserved and shared in ways that avoid creating more harm or trauma. New threats to human rights are emerging at the intersection of artificial intelligence, misinformation and disinformation and a global wave of rising authoritarianism.

When it comes to systemic challenges we are on the watch for both existing problems – like how large amounts of critical human rights footage are lost because of the arbitrary decisions of platforms – but also emerging threats and opportunities, such as those posed by ‘deepfakes’, new ways to manipulate media to make it look like someone said or did something they never did.

THE ROLE

The Associate Director of Programs, Regional and Partner engagement, is an exciting new position at WITNESS. The role holder provides support and management to a dynamic team of program and senior program managers based in Brazil, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey and the United States. The role holder supervises the team, provides strategic guidance on two primary areas of work: 1. collaborate for human rights impact projects with community partners 2. Learning and sharing of WITNESS’s guidance and expertise with community partners and activists. The role collaborates closely with the technology, threats and opportunities team (“TTO”) team at WITNESS to keep ahead of emerging technologies’ impact on the human rights landscape.

The role holder also ensures coordination of programmatic work with all parts of the organization, including human resources, technology, finance, including a big shift to be a fully distributed digital global team.

This is a unique opportunity to work closely with the Associate Director for Learning and Sharing and the Global Program Director to provide more cohesion between our deeper human rights impact-learning projects and then how we strategically and effectively share our learnings with activists in similar realities, creating more deliberate/intentional learnings and solidarity opportunities horizontally-across the globe.

As an organization deeply embedded in local and global movements across diverse contexts, WITNESS is constantly learning about new tactics –and gaps– in the global field of video-for-change. These learnings belong to the movement, not to WITNESS, and so sharing what we are learning (as well as supporting our partners/allies to learn from each other) is an ethical obligation core to how we work. Some of what we’ve co-learned over the years is compiled and offered in the WITNESS Library, currently home to 180+ training resources in over 27 languages.

This role will work to directly support a globally distributed team of Program and Senior Program Managers and also collaborates closely with WITNESS’ own Learning communities (Archiving, Video as Evidence, New Technologies) as well as more broadly across the video/tech/human rights landscape, working closely with the Technology, Threats and Opportunities team to collaborate to identify opportunities aimed at promoting and enhancing our impact on human rights change for communities directly impacted by inequality and injustice.

THE RESPONSIBILITIES

Programmatic Strategy and Oversight

• Ensures the day to day management of the team and implementation of workplan plan goals of program team members
• Supports Global Program Director to ensure program staff feed into effectively to the Monitor and Evaluation systems–including programmatic activity and progress data for bi-monthly updates, WITNESS’s quarterly Share, annual performance updates and other external reporting
• Ensure Program and Senior Program Managers are feeding into, aligned around programmatic priorities, plans, and budgets, and ensure progress and human rights impact are achieved for communities we center and serve and manage smooth collaboration and internal communication across teams
• Helping WITNESS team continue to work to innovate more nimbly and effectively, including working with Associate Director of Learning and Sharing and Global engagement, and Technology team via identifying key areas where we can learn in the emerging technology and human rights landscape
• Leveraging feedback, conducting needs assessments/gap analyses that can support WITNESS team to more optimally capture impact of our work with communities and communities needs assessments
• Stay abreast of new models, methodologies, workflows and effective practices at the intersections of video+tech+human rights movements
• Support the team to improve online/offline trainings by supporting programmatic onboarding as needed, internal training, facilitating access to best practices/case studies and by helping train new team members in both the content and the soft skills needed for effective capacity-building
• Participate in the Directors Team as needed: to review and weigh in on strategic direction, major program initiatives, and resource allocation
• Monitor and support all programmatic budgets in conjunction with project leads
• Provide strategic insight and internal trainings on partner and community engagement, materials distribution and advocacy

Departmental Management

• Supervise and support day-to-day operational, programmatic support of the Program and Senior Program Managers in Brazil, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey and the United States
• Manage all aspects of the team and make strategic and operational suggestions in collaboration with Director of People and Systems
• Assist in recruitment, interviewing, selection, and training of relevant program staf
• Supervise relevant interns, volunteers, fellows, and e-interns

Development, Communications and Community Building

• Support the External Relations/Finance Teams on fundraising for relevant projects by providing input on proposals, budgets, and reports, and by participating in relevant donor meetings
• Work with Communications to develop cohesive messaging materials around programmatic activities
• Blog and use social media on relevant programmatic topics
• On occasion participate in public presentations and media relations as a spokesperson for WITNESS, with particular reference to programmatic work

THE IDEAL CANDIDATE

Global Human Rights: 8-10 years experience working in human rights education/advocacy, social justice and/or campaigning locally, regionally and/or globally, including by working collaboratively with diverse stakeholders like community-based organizations, activist networks and NGOs across different geographies/contexts (experience outside the “Global North” a plus). Skilled trust-builder with experience navigating nuance, political sensitivities and security precautions needed to do this work ethically.

Training/community engagement: Experience in designing and leading training/workshops, facilitating strategic spaces aimed at building capacity within movements fighting for human rights and social change. Seeking a forward-looking educator that is curious, comfortable and experienced with newer/more innovative methods for learning/training

Video-for-Change: Experience/knowledge of how video, audiovisual documentation and technology are (or can be) used in communication, social justice and human rights advocacy contexts.

Communication: Strong listening skills. Ability to communicate clearly and effectively in verbal, visual and written forms cross-culturally and at a variety of levels (NGOs, donors, UN, government, media, youth). Strong understanding of digital communications and effective messaging/distribution online are a must.

Languages: Fluent English is required, additional languages a huge plus, especially Spanish, French, Portuguese or Arabic.

Management: Previous demonstrated experience directly supervising people, projects and budgets is required; cross-cultural competency a must.

Characteristics: Strong people/project management and organizational skills; superb attention to detail; ability to multi-task and troubleshoot in pressure situations; demonstrated resourcefulness, optimism, and flexibility in approach to project assignments; strong team player yet able to work independently; demonstrated high degree of maturity. Commitment to WITNESS’ values/mission.

Education: You can tell us about your degrees, but we’re more interested in your passions and what you know how to do. If your degrees are part of that story, great, tell us! (But no formal education required)

Location: The location is flexible provided some overlap of working hours with the rest of the team can be ensured. WITNESS is registered as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in the U.S and currently retains an office in New York City. However, since 2020, its staff is currently working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The successful candidate must have the legal right-to-work in the location in which they will be based. We are unable to sponsor visas or relocations for this role.

Compensation: The gross salary for this position is $102,050 based out of New York City. The salary will be localized considering relative cost of living in the applicable country using the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) Post Adjustment Multiplier- a metric system that is revised monthly and that WITNESS uses to determine salaries globally. For example, if you are based in Nigeria, the gross salary will be $83,068 USD.

Benefits:

• Health: WITNESS also offers competitive and robust medical benefits that cover an individual’s medical, dental and vision at 100% and covers a % of the individual’s dependents.
• Life Insurance & AD & D: WITNESS provides life insurance and AD&D payable at one time (1x) the employee’s salary, to the beneficiary, in the event an employee were to expire while employed by the organization.
• Remote Work Stipend: WITNESS recognizes that flexible working arrangements are key to equity and inclusion in the workplace and we provide a $175 USD monthly remote work allowance, we are happy to talk about the type of flexible arrangements that might work best for you. This remote work stipend is provided to all staff members to pay for extra equipment, electricity, stationery, internet, wellness, or whatever an employee deems necessary in order to work remotely. Please note that a computer and basic accessories are provided to all employees at the time of hire.
• Pension Contributions: After 1 year of service at the organization, WITNESS will contribute 3% of an individual’s gross salary towards a global retirement fund.
• Paid Time Off: WITNESS offers a range of benefits, depending on the location of the individual, and 15-20 days of paid annual leave in addition to public holidays and end of year leave. Regular full-time Employees are authorized to accrue up to ten (10) paid sick days and five (5) paid personal days per fiscal year.
• Reading Days: WITNESS also provides “Reading Days” to our staff, at (1) per month, schedule permitting. These days serve as an opportunity for an employee to take time away from meetings and read up on the field, connect to peers, or learn about WITNESS projects, institutional information or to learn about items pertinent to their work.
• Wellness Days: WITNESS will periodically do a review of overall staff morale and mental health and provide mental health days to all staff to give everyone a chance to recharge. This year, for example, we added (3) “Wellness” days to our end of year break.
• Work/ Life Balance :WITNESS believes in creating a healthy work environment in which flexible schedules are available, we also understand that sometimes an employee may just require a few hours to take care of personal issues in which case they can adjust their hours to make up for the time instead of taking a full day of leave. Both are allowable once agreed upon with the departmental supervisors.
• Mental Health Policy: WITNESS feels that all employees should feel supported both physically as well as mentally while they are at work and realizes that many times the issues that we deal with, the materials that we watch and the events surrounding some of the work that we do, can lead to feeling “unwell” and not in a “good space”. Should a situation arise in which an Employee requests support on mental health, WITNESS will award (10) days of “WITNESS” paid leave.
• Sabbatical Leave: common in educational institutions, is unusual for nonprofit organizations. WITNESS offers this policy because we believe that it will help our long-term Employees develop new insights, greater knowledge, and better skills. All of these inevitably aid our programs and WITNESS. Sabbatical Leave is with full pay(up to 10 weeks) and benefits currently elected by the Employee, and eligibility begins upon completion of ten (10) consecutive years of employment at WITNESS.
• Professional Development: WITNESS also provides several professional development and growth opportunities for our staff through the HR professional development budget.

Reports to: Global Program Director

Start Date: ASAP

Principle Relationships:

• Global Program Director
• Supervise a globally digitally distributed Program team including 5-6 staff
• Collaborate closely with Associate Director for Learning and Sharing