Senior Community Engagement Officer-Immunization

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ROLE PURPOSE

UNICEF Kenya proposes to expand its evidence-based community engagement with cross-border populations to increase the number of children below 5 years (target under 5 population 87,494) who are reached with life-saving immunization interventions using community-informed strategic approaches. The Immunization project will synergize and work closely with nomadic and cross-border informants (clan elders, religious leaders, and opinion leaders) and nomadic/cross-border supervisors to ensure that targeted villages are mobilized, continuously mapped, and influenced to value, access, utilize and demand outreach and health-facility immunization services.

Save the Children is recruiting a Senior Community Engagement Officer to lead the implementation of community level social and behavior change (SBC) Immunization strategies for upcoming Unicef DICE project in Wajir East and Wajir South cross border communities. S/he will ensure that all SBC activities support the achievement of immunization targets, at the community level. S/he contribute to strategic planning, coordination and monitoring & evaluation of SBC strategies and interventions for the project’s community level activities. The Senior SBC Officer will also take a lead role in coordination with SCHMT and partners at sub county level to adhere to the community level SBC strategy and approaches.

This position is contingent on upon successful agreement award and donor approval.

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY

Program Delivery

• Support the development of the project’s strategic documents including SBC strategy, work plan, MEAL plan and quarterly, semi-annual and annual reports
• Prepare narrative reports for the donor(s) and Save the Children as required, ensuring these are of a high quality and submitted for review in a timely manner
• Collaborate with MOH to cultivate strategic relationships with community leaders, and other stakeholders for the smooth implementation of SBC strategy for the immunisation demand creation
• Participate in the Immunisation microplanning planning process in close collaboration with County and sub county health teams and the project staff.
• In collaboration with county and sub county health teams, support shifts in community engagement approach as needed based on the reports and data
• Respond to donor requests related to progress against targets and provide other programmatically relevant information in a timely fashion
• Ensure that gender and child safeguarding is at the forefront of all community level mobilization activities, including design, planning, implementation, and monitoring
• Ensure the timeliness and quality of all SBC community mobilization content for reports and meet all reporting requirements

Community and Stakeholders Engagement

• Attend meetings and represent the SBC community mobilization initiatives of the project in all relevant levels of government officials, partners, NGOs and private sector representative
• Represent the project at relevant sub-county and county forums including relevant sector conferences
• Work closely with the core group partners to complement ongoing advocacy initiatives aimed at ensuring best practices are institutionalized and scaled up
• Work with health sector working group to further Save the Children’s mission for children

People management, mentoring and development

• Provide mentorship to technical project and MOH staff on community mobilization approaches
• Ensure all staff have the technical knowledge to complete their job duties
• Lead and motivate the team to ensure effective project implementation

Knowledge management

• Facilitate appropriate dissemination of good practices documentations in the project internally and externally to donors, governments, partners and other key actors
• Work with MEAL team to facilitate sharing and learning in SBC and leverage on their support to strengthen knowledge management capacities at project level

Contract Duration: 10 Months

Number of Vacancies: 1

Work Location: Wajir

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

• A Bachelor degree in Public Health or Social sciences with a minimum of 5 years of professional experience in INGOs delivering community centred public health interventions in North East Kenya
• Extensive experience implementing community mobilization and health promotion in North East Kenya
• Good understanding of the social behaviour change communication and socio ecological model ; significant players in the community health, community mobilization and Immunisation programming in hard to reach populations
• Proven experience in training staff and community members and strong knowledge of community capacity building for team members, government and community counterparts
• Experience of working with county and subcounty management teams and capacity building of frontline health workers
• Highly developed cultural awareness and ability to work well in matrix management environment with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures
• Demonstrated ability to lead and work effectively in team situations
• Strong results orientation, with the ability to challenge existing mind-sets.
• Demonstrated problem solving skills, collaboration experience, creativity and willingness to innovate.
• Willingness to travel within Wajir county as needed
• Fluent oral and strong analytical, written English communication skills is required
• Proficiency in the Somali language is highly desirable
• Good computer skills (particularly Word, Excel and database)
• Commitment to Save the Children’s aims, values and principles including willingness to abide by and enforce the Child Safeguarding policy.

THE ORGANIZATION

We employ approximately 25,000 people across the globe and work on the ground in over 100 countries to help children affected by crises, or those that need better healthcare, education and child protection. We also campaign and advocate at the highest levels to realise the right of children and to ensure their voices are heard.

We are working towards three breakthroughs in how the world treats children by 2030:

• No child dies from preventable causes before their 5th birthday
• All children learn from a quality basic education and that,
• Violence against children is no longer tolerated

HOW TO APPLY

Please apply in English saving your CV and covering letter as a single document, including your salary expectations for this role. To see a full a job description, please visit our website at

We need to keep children safe so our selection process reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse. Employment is subject to our Child protection standards including background checks and adherence to our Child Safeguarding Policy.

Save the Children is an equal opportunity employer and seeks to employ and assign the best-qualified talent.

Female Candidates are encouraged to apply.

Disclaimer:

Save the Children International does not charge any kind of fee at whichever stage of the recruitment process, nor request for medical examination or records and does not act through recruitment agents whatsoever.