Livelihoods Program Officer

Reporting to: Area Project Coordinator

Duty Station: Kalokol and Kang’atotha Wards, Turkana Central Sub County.

General Position Summary:

Feed the Children is implementing a Child Focused Community Development (CFCD) program, which is a comprehensive and integrated approach designed to empower children and their communities achieve self-sufficiency around its four program pillars – Food & Nutrition, Health & Water, Education and Livelihoods. Child Sponsorship is integrated at the centre of the pillars to support the CFCD programming. Feed the Children’s key livelihood related activities are focused on improving financial management, improving community partnership and support, and increasing food diversity so that families will be self-reliant, financially stable, and food secure in order to support and strengthen their communities. FEED’s livelihood activities strive to enhance effective capacity building so that community members understand both personal and societal obstacles they must overcome in order to strengthen their families and communities.

The Livelihoods Officer will support the implementation of Village Savings and Loans (VSL) groups, Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction, Community Livestock Disease Surveillance and Value Chain Development in coordination with the Area Program Coordinator. The Officer will largely draw on technical support from the Livelihoods Pillar Manager to ensure that Feed the Children’s Child Focused Community Development strategies and approaches are applied and lead to sustainable economic and nutrition outcomes.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Execute livelihoods interventions as detailed in the annual operations plan for Turkana area program under Household Economic Empowerment and Promotion of Income Generating Activities; Household Food Security; Community Disaster Risk Reduction; Community Livestock Disease Surveillance and Value Chain Development.
• Plan and execute community mobilization and sensitizations, Capacity building trainings and post training support in the field.
• Develop and maintain positive working relationships with government departments within the area of operation and seek for appropriate technical and operation support as required.
• Represent FEED the Children at Sub-County level Coordination and technical forums linked to areas of interest of livelihoods, crop production forums, livestock production forums, fish production and others as will be specified by the line manager and/or Area Program Coordinator.
• Represent FEED in Food Security Rapid Assessments planning and data collection forums coordinated by County government and NDMA
• Facilitate Participatory Community Risk Assessments and guide communities on risks preparedness and response actions.
• Work with Food & Nutrition, Health & Water, and Education teams to identify and implement evidence-based interventions that contribute to the overall Turkana CFCD Program goal.
• Carry out supportive supervision of Village Agents (VA) and VSL groups to gauge their performance and reinforce their compliance to VSL methodology and address challenges the groups are experiencing.
• Facilitate the transition of VAs to Private Service Providers (PSP) certification in compliance with the VSL implementation guidelines
• Ensure all Village Agents operations follow the signed code of conduct and behave in an ethical manner
• Carry out data collection and conduct data entry into the SAVIX MIS and Dev results online platforms
• Coordinate the formation of Turkana PSP network being led by PSPs
• Compile weekly and monthly progress reports, success stories, media reports and other ad hoc reports as may be required
• Participate in development of annual DIPs, budgets and fundraising proposals & concept papers for area activities and programs
• Undertake any other duties as assigned by the supervisor.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business management, economics, Agriculture, livestock, cooperative management, or rangeland management.
• A minimum of 3 years working experience preferably in a community based in NGO setting
• Must have working knowledge of Project Management Cycle, CMDRR, Value Chain development and VSL implementation.
• Experience in using participatory adult learning methodologies in trainings and capacity building
• Self-reliance and ability to work in a challenging and demanding environment
• Fluency in spoken and written language in English, Swahili and Turkana language is an added advantage.
• Confident, sound training facilitation and representation/relationship management skills;
• Strong written and oral communication skills
• Ability to work without constant supervision and as part of a diverse team.
• Good experience and knowledge of Child Protection policies.
• Good knowledge of MS Office software such as Excel, Word, and Access.

Travel Required: 80% field travel to Kalokol and Kang’atotha Wards and 20% Lodwar Office.

Level of Contact with Children: High Contact – FEED the Children has an organizational Code of Conduct and Child Protection Policy developed to ensure the maximum protection of Programme participants and to clarify the responsibilities of FEED staff and the standards of behavior expected of them. Therefore, it is expected the staff will have the responsibility to protect children.