Gender and Inclusion Advisor (The BRIDGE PROJECT)

Position Title: Gender and Inclusion Advisor (The BRIDGE PROJECT)

Position Grade: B3

Duty Station :Kampala, Uganda, with regular field travel

Contract:24 months, Renewable

Reports to: Project Director

Management Responsibility: Direct Supervision of two (2) Protection Officers

Key Relationships: Project Director, Regional Coordinators, Senior Project Officer – Innovation and Technology, Advocacy and Partnership Lead, Education and Transferrable Skills Lead, MEAL Lead and Project Engineer

Background: War Child Canada is an internationally recognized charity organization registered in Toronto, Canada, dedicated to helping children and their communities overcome the devastating effects of war. Its vision is “Accelerating Peace By Disrupting The Cycle Of Violence” and its mission is “Driving Generational Change For The Hardest Hit By Investing In The Power Of Local Communities”

Since being founded in 1999, War Child Canada has worked in 20 countries across the world and we are currently operational in Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda.

During the past five years, War Child Canada reached over 2,500,000 conflict-afflicted children and adults; 985,000 people benefitted from War Child’s educational initiatives; 480,000 people were helped to climb out of poverty and 1,075,000 people learned more about their rights and had better access to justice systems

War Child Canada in Uganda: Since 2014, War Child Canada has worked in 10 districts (mainly Refugee hosting) implementing integrated education, access to justice (incudes peacebuilding), opportunities/livelihoods, and programs. Our current districts of operation include: Adjumani, Obongi, Yumbe, Arua, Koboko, Isingiro, Lamwo, Kikuube, Koboko and Kamwenge districts.

Context: The BRIDGE PROJECT: War Child Canada in partnership with Mastercard Foundation, Community Empowerment for Rural Development – CEFORD, Education Local Expertise Uganda (ELECU) and eight Refugee Led Community based organizations, will be implementing the BRIDGE: From Secondary Education and Skills Development to Job Opportunities for Refugee and Host Community Youth in Uganda’ Project.

The BRIDGE project that will be implemented from 2022 to 2026 is designed to further the Mastercard Foundation’ Young Africa Works Strategy (2018 to 2030) [1] and address the youth unemployment challenge focusing on refugee and host communities in Uganda’s refugee settlements in Adjumani, Obongi, Isingiro, Kamwenge, Kikuube, Yumbe, Arua and Koboko districts.

War Child Canada and project implementing partners will employ a gender sensitive and inclusive approach to programming, empower young people and recognize their potential as agents of change to ensure effective implementation and sustainability of the interventions. This will be achieved through two outcomes.

• Increased access to market relevant secondary and tertiary education and skills for refugee and host community youth
• Improved capacity of education institutions and teachers to offer quality and relevant education and skills for refugee and host community youth

The program will help to increase demand for education through a strong community engagement and strengthen education supply by strengthening the capacity of Alternative Education Program (AEP) host schools and BTVETs on gender and age sensitivity education and enroll 20,400 Lower Secondary AEP learners (14,280 female) and 2,168 (,518 female) Advanced level learners into 34 lower secondary AEP centers, 2,003 learners (1,402 female) in 15 Business, Technical, Vocational Education and Training (BTVET) schools and 136 learners in different universities across the country.

The proposed program aims to improve the quality and relevance of education by placing a strong focus on teacher capacity and formal, non-formal and alternative education and learning opportunities.

The program will further support young people in their transition to dignified work and throughout the life of the project, to thrive in their chosen form of employment or livelihood. Activities to support their success will include conducting market analysis annually to tailor interventions to the business context at the refugee settlement, implementing an adopted UPSHIFT – business incubation “boot camps”, strengthening youth business support centres and BTVET institutions through training and infrastructure improvements, providing financial support to young people to access training programs and set up businesses and pairing young people with mentors from the business community.

Finally, the program approach promotes continuous learning and development to ensure project sustainability.

Position summary: This position will be responsible for ensuring gender and protection consideration are mainstreamed across all project activities; lead in the implementation of child safeguarding policies across the project; support capacity building regarding psychosocial support and social and emotional learning; SS and SEL; Support the NCDC in the production and adaptation of the project curriculum needs; and represents War Child Canada in key gender and inclusion working groups and coordination forums.

Responsibilities:

Project Management and Delivery:

• Elaborate a gender and inclusion strategy for the project and oversee implementation of the strategy and adapt and improve
• Conduct regular reviews of project to determine integration of gender and inclusion approaches
• Maintain up-to-date knowledge and understanding of gender and inclusion issues and needs among youth, and highlight actionable and relevant adaptations for project implementation team according to shifting needs of project participants
• Develop tools and strategies for the identification, enrollment, retention and transition of learners with Special Education Needs and Disabilities, including supporting advising on the delivery of assistive devices to learners with disabilities.
• Facilitate the conduct of school-based workshops with each of the 34 lower secondary AEP secondary schools to draft Child Safeguarding, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA) and Code of Conduct policies and procedures, including reporting, feedback, and referral mechanisms
• Conduct regular mapping of other local, regional and national organizations engaged in complimentary or related work
• Collaborate with management and field teams to integrate gender,youth and persons with disabilities throughout the project
• Provide support in the development of operational manuals and curricula to ensure gender and youth equity and sensitivity in manual content and presentation
• Collaborate with local women’s groups, gender-focused organizations, youth-focused organizations and other groups implementing similar gender- and youth-related activities in similar areas
• Participate in gender-related meetings with the donor, stakeholders, government officials, and implementing partners.
• Work closely with technical staff to design and implement activities that strengthen women’s and youth access to education, finance, training and other resources
• Conduct regular community consultations to ensure the project adaptively remains gender and youth sensitive and on-track
• Collect and share learnings and best practices
• Identify, build and manage collaborative partnerships with consortium partners, donor, local governments and other stakeholders
• Develop targeted gender and youth capacity building interventions to promote integration with project staff
• Support project team in the development and delivery of training and capacity building on key gender and youth topics to project participants

Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, Reporting and Learning (MEARL):

• Working closely with the Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Project Lead and the Country MEAL Manager, integrate gender and inclusion lens in development and implementation of a robust MEAL framework, plan and system to measure, document and disseminate progress, results and organizational learning during project implementation (including baseline, midline, and endline assessments).
• Ensure agreed and adopted MEAL approaches consistently integrate gender and inclusion approaches and strategies.

Human Resource (HR) and Operations:

• Provide direct management to Protection Officers
• Working closely with the Project Director and the Finance, Grants and operations, ensure up-date-date recording and effective management, accountability, and utilization project budgets, goods, supplies and equipment within your management.
• Create and maintain proper conditions for learning. Establish a safe environment for sharing of ideas, solutions, and challenges and the capacity to detect, analyze and respond quickly to deficiencies. Identify performance gaps and training opportunities for supervised staff and Refugee Led CBO partner staff, and; ensure the design and delivery of high-quality training and technical assistance.

Requirements:

Knowledge and Experience:

• Master’s degree in Gender Studies, Gender and Development or equivalent
• Specialist knowledge of gender equality, the rights and empowerment of women and girls and engaging men and boys in gender equality in theory and in practice in a development and/or humanitarian context
• Extensive experience of working with gender mainstreaming including programme development, implementation and monitoring and evaluation.
• Experience of working with gender transformative approaches, empowering women and girls, changing gender norms and engaging men and boys to promote gender equality.
• Good understanding of child rights programming and human rights-based approaches.
• Proven experience working in education programming in development and/or humanitarian contexts
• Knowledge and understand of the Ugandan education system desirable
• Accomplished trainer with experience working with diverse and multi-lingual groups of learners
• Extensive experience in project design, implementation, and evaluation

Skills and Abilities:

• Demonstrated ability to think strategically, prioritize, and meet deadlines in a complex and challenging environment.
• Ability to work well with diverse teams from all backgrounds and levels.
• Strong diplomacy skills: ability to establish and maintain good working relationships with partners, donors and other stakeholders in a sensitive environment.
• Excellent English writing ability and verbal skills for project proposals, reports and communications.
• Problem solving and ability to work with minimal supervision.
• Willingness and ability to travel outside Kampala.
• Ability and willingness to be extremely flexible and accommodating in a difficult and sometimes insecure working environment.

Personal Attributes:

• Affinity with War Child Canada’s mandate.
• Politically and culturally sensitive with qualities of patience, tact and diplomacy.
• Creative, energetic, adaptable, and flexible.
• Stress-resilient to be able to cope with deadlines and complex problems.

[1] For more information Mastercard Foundations Young Africa Works Strategy, please refer to this link – https://mastercardfdn.org/research/young-africa-works/