Data Assistant

Position Title: Crisis Tracker Data Assistant

Employment Status: Part-time, hourly rate

Location: Remote

Direct Supervisor: Director of Research and Policy

About Invisible Children and the Crisis Tracker

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., Invisible Children (IC) is an international non-profit organization working to end violent conflict and exploitation facing our world’s most isolated and unprotected communities. We partner with local visionaries in volatile conflict zones to build community-led initiatives and drive global policy change to end violent conflict and ensure communities have the safety they deserve. When Invisible Children was founded in 2004, our primary aim was to hasten an end to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) crisis in central Africa and support the lasting recovery of communities in the region targeted by the LRA and other armed groups. Our comprehensive approach to the LRA crisis has integrated every level of intervention, from direct partnerships with local communities to advocacy campaigns targeting international policymakers.

Over the course of 12 years, working with remote communities in central Africa, we have contributed to significant progress in ending the LRA crisis, while refining and adapting our programs to address violence perpetrated by a number of armed groups and other destabilizing forces threatening the central Africa region. IC’s current work focuses on developing innovative and sustainable solutions to regional insecurity and armed group violence. In recent years, this has included the exploration of community-based initiatives and conflict analysis to address the intersection of human security and illicit wildlife trafficking in the central Africa region.

The Crisis Tracker is a geospatial database and reporting project managed by IC which aims to track incidents of violent conflict in the border region encompassing eastern Central African Republic, northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, southwestern South Sudan, and western Sudan. Launched in 2011 as the LRA Crisis Tracker, the project was renamed as the Crisis Tracker in September 2018 to better reflect the breadth of conflict dynamics covered by the project. Through publication of regular reports and sharing of collected data, the Crisis Tracker aims to help overcome the current deficit of relevant and timely information related to armed group activity and to support improved policy and protection responses.

Position Summary

Invisible Children is seeking a dynamic and detail-oriented Crisis Tracker Data Assistant to assist with gathering, entering, revamping, and analyzing conflict and program data so that the tool can report on violence in central Africa in a way that will lead to better humanitarian response and more accurate conflict analysis. In particular, this work will help IC securely and thoroughly document information related to armed group activity and how civil society actors respond to this activity to mitigate risks to civilians. This documentation will play a critical role in supporting efforts by IC and other stakeholders in the region to ensure that armed group escapees receive care and are safely reunited with their families.

Responsibilities

• Using information provided by IC’s early warning system and other sources, evaluate and enter data into IC’s secure online database to create reports for the following types of incidents, among others:
  • Armed group attacks involving civilians,
  • Intercommunal tension and violence,
  • Missing persons records,
  • How local, national, and international actors respond to mitigate risks to civilians;
• Develop and prepare content for alerts to key humanitarian and policymaker stakeholders sent via email and WhatsApp;
• Assist in the identification of trends in violence, particularly abductions, by armed groups;
• Miscellaneous data entry and data cleaning.

Required skills/experience

• Fluency in English (oral and written);
• Proficiency with MS Excel and/or Google Sheets;
• Experience in data coding and entry;
• Attention to detail and accuracy;
• Efficient organization skills;
• Ability to learn and master new software and programs;
• Ability to maintain confidentiality.

Preferred skills/experience

• Proficiency in French or Arabic desirable;
• Proficiency with Salesforce;
• Experience in data analytics;
• Experience with geo-spatial databases.

Time Commitment: 7-10 hours per week.

Duration: Four to six months with the opportunity for renewal.