Consulting Subject-Matter Expert (Gynaecologist) India

Who We Are

Girl Effect is an international non-profit that builds media that girls want, trust and need.From chatbots to chat shows, and TV dramas to tech, our content helps adolescent girls in Africa, and Asia make choices and changes in their lives. We create safe spaces for girls, sharing facts and answering questions about health, nutrition, education, and relationships, empowering girls with the skills to negotiate and redefine what they are told is possible “for a girl”.

Our reach is 20 million and counting, and we use technology to reach girls at scale so every girl can choose to be in control of her body, health, learning and livelihood.

Because when a girl unlocks her power to make different choices that change her life, it inspires others to do so too. She starts a ripple effect that impacts her family, community, and country.

That’s the Girl Effect.

The Brand

Chhaa Jaa (Go Forth and Shine) – a powerful, youth brand co-designed with girls in India

In June 2019, Girl Effect launched Chhaa Jaa (छा जा) –an online youth brand inspiring, entertaining and empowering girls with the right skills and confidence to navigate adolescence – from providing accurate information about sexual and reproductive health, encouraging conversations around mental well-being, to building girls’ confidence to access services as and when they need it.

Chhaa Jaa is aimed at girls aged 18-24 with internet access. Usually, this is through shared devices or even highly monitored owned devices. Chhaa Jaa is designed for girls and women across the Hindi- speaking states in India, with Hinglish as its core language of communication.

Chhaa Jaa consists of multiple products that cater to her needs and ensures that our audience is reached, effectively and efficiently, where she already spends most of her time –

• Digital media content that girls can access on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram that is both entertaining and informative. Characters and storylines have been developed with girls and are designed to reflect their lives and the challenges they might face;
• An online, moderated peer-to-peer community (Bak Bak Gang) which acts as a safe space for girls 16 and above years of age to discuss sexual and reproductive health concerns, interact closely with Chhaa Jaa’s content, explore the themes and topics that are relevant for them, and apply what they’ve learnt to their own lives;
• A chatbot (Bol Behen) that offers a private way for girls to ask questions about the themes and topics raised by Chhaa Jaa content and safely get information.
• A website (www.chhaajaa.com ) that is being built into a youth-friendly service directory for easy access to services and products – both online and offline – to help girls improve their sexual and reproductive health (SRH), mental well-being (MW) and economic empowerment (EE) from getting the right information about their bodies, booking doctor consultations, accessing online skilling courses, opening up on their mental wellbeing and career guidance, to name a few.

Context

Chhaa Jaa has launched 3 different campaigns towards behaviour change programming around Sexual Reproductive Health since 2019. Over the last three seasons, we have brought girls along on a journey where we have helped them understand the importance of contraceptives, of always holding on to their dreams (within and outside of her relationship) and the importance of timely advice from doctors.

In this upcoming season, we will help change the narrative around healthcare seeking behaviors in our Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) from reactive to proactive. We want to help drive her towards the positive behaviours we have been encouraging her to have around SRH. They are:

1. Girls access SRHR (Sexual reproductive health and rights) services, either through telemedicine or in-person visits to the doctors regularly whenever they face an issue.
2. AGYWs adopt the oral contraceptive pill in addition to using condoms at each sexual encounter.

We will do this by giving her –

• A proper broken down view of accessing services and using OCPs (oral contraceptive pills) – what it means, how much it costs, and how it is useful, especially with respect to the service partners we will ultimately be nudging her to
• Hacks to help her navigate conversations with healthcare professionals as well as equip her to be able to have an objective inner monologue

This will be achieved through building in provocations, offering her fundas/mantras, encouraging promises to herself on her resolve and timely calls to action and nudges towards taking charge of her health. This season’s key messages will be delivered through 4 video formats & approximately 80 chat flows on our chatbot Bol Behen.

The Brief:

1. Guiding & Reviewing: You will help curate resources and conduct a timely review of draft versions of our scripts & episodes for medical accuracy with a focus on OCPs & Telemedicines, specifically for our upcoming campaign and SRH in general. You will guide our script writers/producers for the four different video formats. Additionally, you will also work with our chatbot writer and review scripts of the content for chat flows on similar topics.

This will be towards helping our script writers & producers work towards simplified, youth-friendly and easy-to-understand explanations of complex medical/health-related topics that we will be taking up this season. We will be using several metaphors/analogies etc., to do this, and you will be supporting/verifying these for the team to ensure that connotations of colloquial explanations don’t take away from medical facts of the underlying topic. The tentative number of review pieces, including scripts, episodes & chatbot:

• Khullam Khulla – 4 Scripts + content cuts of episodes
• Pate ki Baat – 4 Scripts + content cuts of episodes
• Kahi Suni – 6 Scripts + content cuts of episodes
• Girl Adda – 4 Hosts + content cuts of episodes
• Bol Behen Chatbot – Approx 80 chat flows in total

1. Vetting: You will also be responsible for vetting the final content of all produced video formats and chat flows on our chatbot to ensure that nothing got lost in translation from the pre-production to production stages of content development.

Most importantly, as you review and vet our content, we need you to ensure that you have a lens that is youth-friendly, body and sex-positive, gender inclusive, trauma-informed and adopts a rights-based approach towards girls and young women.

Expected Commitment

This will be a part-time consultancy contract for six months. The consultant is expected to commit a minimum of 6 hours/week, which can vary depending on our budget and your fee requirement.

Location

The consultant will be based in India (preferably Mumbai or Delhi).

Intended Timeframe

• Terms of reference published: 11th May 2023
• Deadline for responses: 19th May 2023
• Supplier selection, contracting and briefing: 24th May 2023
• Project commencement: 1st June 2023

Who You Are

Experience

• Advanced degree in MBBS, specialization in Gynaecology/Obstetrician with a clinical license and registration number.
• Minimum 5 years of professional experience with adolescents and/or young girls & women, especially from vulnerable, marginalized, low-income communities. Especially with OCP/ECP usage and cases where at-risk problems with their usage have occurred.
• Additional certification or training in relevant fields, including HPV, PCOS, Endometriosis, Fertility, Sex Therapy, will be desirable.
• Experience developing, adapting and designing content for different audiences, especially those not well-versed in medical/technical literature.
• Experience or, at the very least, familiarity with addressing SRH concerns in the digital world (including internet use, social media and cyberbullying).
• Good understanding of gender-specific issues affecting adolescent girls and how SRH-based programming can contribute to girls’ empowerment.

Skills and expertise

• You are someone who is sex-positive and can guide our content without any judgement and their personal beliefs coming in when talking about sensitive issues like premarital sex, contraception, abortion, etc.
• Effective communicator and writer in English and Hindi with the ability to synthesize, communicate and simplify complex language concepts as per the needs of girls and young women.
• Excellent interpersonal communication skills and experience working in a multicultural team across multiple countries. Sensitivity to cultural differences is essential.
• Ability to be flexible within a fast-paced, changing environment.
• Commitment to realizing the potential of girls and to the vision and values of Girl Effect.

Reporting

This engagement will be managed by GE’s SBCC & Content Leads, supported by their teams – who will work with the consultant to ensure its timely and thorough execution.

Proposal Submission

Your proposal, should you be interested (Max 5 pages), should cover

• Your understanding of the brief and why you feel you are well-placed to advise us on this
• Credentials/Profile/CV – Please showcase any previous work that you consider relevant to what we are trying to achieve, how we approach our work, and the audience we cater to. Describe the qualifications, experience, and capabilities of the firm or consultant in providing the requested services.
  • Copies of your publications or reports to support your proposal
• **Reference-**Provide at least three references for similar contracts with a description of the service provided, the value of the contract, and the contract periods of performance.
• Breakdown of Costs with applicable taxes and other charges clearly identified in INR. Consultants should provide their daily or hourly billing rate or their proposed fixed fee for the requested deliverables.
  • All applicable taxes should be quoted separately;

In their proposal, the bidder must demonstrate an understanding of the requirements described in the RFP and demonstrate how the bidder will meet the requirements of the evaluation criteria.

GE is not liable for any cost incurred during the award/contract preparation, submission, or negotiation of the award/contract. All submitted documentation and/or materials shall become and remain the property of GE.

VALIDITY of the proposal shall be for 90 days from the date of bid closure.

Evaluation Criteria

The criteria against which proposals will be evaluated are listed below:

Technical Evaluation

• Experience and qualification as outlined in your CV/Credentials – 25%
• Interpretation and understanding of this TOR-10%
• Demonstrated technical knowledge in the topics mentioned – 15%
• Short note explaining why you will be best suited for this, including your schedule/timings in the day when you will be available – 20%

Financial Evaluation

• Value for money/proposed budget breakdown – 30%

Equal Opportunities

Girl Effect is committed to equal opportunity regardless of race, colour, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.

We are committed to building an organization that is truly representative of the communities that we serve. To this end, due regard will be paid to procuring consultancy services of organizations and individuals with a deep understanding and experience of our programming markets and with diverse professional, academic and cultural backgrounds.

Safeguarding

You may be required to undertake safeguarding checks. Shortlisted consultants will be assessed on our organizational values at the interview stage. The successful consultant will be expected to adhere to our safeguarding policy. We encourage you to read and understand our safeguarding policy, the executive summary of which can be found here. We have zero tolerance for all forms of violence against children, beneficiaries and staff.

Tax

Applicants are advised to ensure that they have a clear understanding of their tax position with regards to provisions of their local jurisdiction tax legislation when developing their proposals.

Disclaimer

GE reserves the right to determine the structure of the process, the number of short-listed participants, the right to withdraw from the proposal process, the right to change this timetable at any time without notice and reserves the right to withdraw this tender at any time, without prior notice and without liability to compensate and/or reimburse any party. GE shall inform the ONLY successful applicant(s). The process of negotiation and signing of the contract with the successful applicant(s) will follow.