Press and Communication Officer to Civil Rights Defenders in Stockholm

Are you an experienced press communicator looking for a chance to develop and broaden your competence within communications? Do you want to use your media skills and expertise in content production to contribute to the human rights movement? Then you might be the one we are looking for.

About the role

As Press and Communications Officer, you will work strategically and operationally with a wide range of communication efforts. The overall objective is to support the human rights defenders we partner with and to increase awareness and knowledge of the work of Civil Rights Defenders, in Sweden as well as globally.

You will be part of a team with other Press and Communications Officers. Together you are responsible for Civil Rights Defenders presence in media, including all proactive and reactive media work, and other public advocacy work. You will have your own responsibility for communication outputs for specified regions but will work tightly together with the other team members to meet our overall communications targets.

The Press and Communications Officer reports to the Communications Director.

About the role

• Plan, implement, coordinate communication efforts relevant to the organisation and its various target groups.
• Act as one of Civil Rights Defenders’ press contacts responsible for our press phone and press mail on a rotating schedule.
• Conduct press and media work, including news monitoring and news evaluation, proactive and reactive media work in Sweden and abroad, conduct media analysis, preparation of media material, such as press releases, Q&As etc.
• Provide support to Civil Rights Defenders spokes persons, including media trainings.
• Write news articles and other texts for publication in traditional media, website etc.
• Produce reports, leaflets, invitations and other print material.
• Provide communication support to departments when arranging public seminars.
• Update the organisation’s website and social media with relevant and customised text and images.
• Produce digital material, for example infographics and movie clips.

About you

As a person, you work well with other people and relate to them in a responsive and smooth way to reach common goals. You also set clearly defined objectives for yourself and plan, organise, and prioritise your work in an efficient way to get there.

To be successful in this role you have the ability to look at the long-term significance of things and can remain motivated and effective despite temporary setbacks. If you also are a strong communicator who can explain complex issues in an engaging and expressive manner, we believe that you are the one we are looking for.

We assume that you share our values.

To be suitable for this role you have:

• • Several years of experience with press work, including good knowledge of how to independently handle and meet needs in press matters, internally and externally.
    – An academic degree with a focus on communication.
    – Good knowledge to evaluate and make prioritise of news and communication efforts.
    – Excellent oral and written language skills in both Swedish and English with the ability to produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects.
    – Good experience from project management, working with teams from different fields, leading the communication aspect of the project.
    – Good understanding of human rights.
    – Good understanding of social media and how to work with target specific content.
    – Great skills in WordPress, Adobe Photoshop and easier video editing for social media.
    – Great skills in Microsoft 365 (Teams, Outlook, Excel, PPT, Word.

It is a merit if you are proficient in other UN languages and or have experience from working in the NGO sector or outside Sweden in an international civil society environment.

About the employment

This is a full-time temporary employment (parental leave) during the period of mid February until December 31 2023. As an organisation, we strive for diversity and we see your background, experience and personality as a contribution to the organisation. You will be based at our headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden.

Please apply as soon as possible as we recruit on an ongoing basis, but no later than 8 January, 2023.

For more information about the position, please contact recruiting manager Maria Granefelt: [email protected].

Local union representative (Unionen) Lia Hen: [email protected].

About us

Civil Rights Defenders is a politically and religiously independent international human rights organisation. We defend people’s civil and political rights in some of the world’s most repressive regions. We partner with and support human rights defenders in more than 300 organisations in 50 countries on four continents. Together with our partners, we hold those in power accountable when people’s civil or political rights are violated. We also act as Sweden’s civil rights watchdog. Civil Rights Defenders has around 100 staff members working in various functions towards our vision – a world of democratic societies in which we all enjoy our civil and political rights. Our headquarter is located in Stockholm, and we have eight branch offices around the world. Learn more about our work at crd.org.