Capacity Building Specialist

About us

Our mission is to get preschool children in rural Africa school-ready. At present over 250 million children worldwide fail to receive the education and care they need in their early years which means they are less likely to do well in school, find gainful employment, and are at greater risk of early marriage, early parenthood and even criminality. Current approaches to solving this crisis are not proving effective or scalable in lower middle income countries.

That’s where Lively Minds comes in. We have developed an award-winning Early Childhood Development programme that has been proven to get pre-schoolers in hard-to-reach communities school-ready, so they have a greater chance of succeeding in school and in life. The programme provides marginalised Mothers with a parenting course that empowers them to run educational Play Schemes for pre-schoolers and to provide better home-based care, using cheap local resources. The programme is delivered through government partners, is cheap and highly scalable. It genuinely has the potential to play a transformative role in ending the global ECD crisis.

We’re a lively ambitious organisation, determined to have a major positive impact on the world. We work hard, at a fast pace, in a challenging environment. We expect everyone to give their best to achieve the best possible results. Our work is demanding but provides plenty of opportunity for innovation, responsibility, growth, collaboration, creativity and fun. We want all staff to be happy, fulfilled and to feel appreciated and valued in their work.

To find out more about our programme, please visit www.livelyminds.org.

About the role

In order to achieve our scale goals, we need to build high performing teams, both in our government partners and in our staff, to deliver the programme to quality standards at scale. In addition, the programme is delivered using a training of trainer’s approach, with Lively Minds training local government teams, who in turn train community-based trainers. It is therefore essential that the cascade is robust at every level to minimise dilution.

We are recruiting a Capacity Building Specialist, who will have a unique position in the organisation, working in both our HR, L&D and our Content team. Working towards the external L&D strategy you will find creative ways to build the capacity and motivation of Government partners, as well as ways to ensure all training activities are cascaded well. You will also contribute to our internal L&D strategy which focuses on building the skills of our team to empower and coach local government, and creating a high performance culture.

To succeed in this role, you:

· Are an excellent communicator & trainer – you thrive when teaching others, whether that be in a formal classroom, or by finding teaching opportunities in day-to-day activities

· Love to develop training materials and to find creative, fun ways to change mindsets and behaviours sustainably

· Are able to drive high performance in others by setting clear goals and expectations

· Are creative, proactive, and energetic

· Are a team player that values and prioritises inclusivity

· Are able to deliver high-quality thoughtful work in a fast-pace high pressure environment

Technical abilities

Essential

· Minimum of 3 years of developing and delivering training programmes and achieving proven results

· Excellent communication (English), both oral and written

· Experience mentoring others

· Ability to manage a complex and varied work load and to work under pressure

· An understanding of professional skills and how to build the capacity of others in these areas

Desirable

· Experience coaching others, a coaching certification is desirable.

· Behaviour-change experience

· Experience working with governments in global south