Turkey-Syria Earthquake Response Manager

Location: Turkey, with travel

Department: Inclusive Humanitarian Action

Reports to: Eurasia-Middle East Humanitarian Programme Manager

Contract Duration: Fixed Term, 12 months (with possible option to extend)

HelpAge and Strategy 2030 – delivering real impact for older people

HelpAge International works with partners and a diverse global network of more than 171 organizations across 90 countries, supporting millions of older people to live safe, dignified and healthy lives. Through our partnership and collaborations, we work to ensure the inclusion of older people across society and strive to deliver a just and fair world for everyone, whatever their age. Our work is driven by our desire to deliver real impact for older people, to be inclusive, to work in partnership and to learn from our shared experience.

Turkey-Syria Earthquake Crisis

On 6th February 2023, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit near Gaziantep, in South-East Turkey, near the North-West Syrian border, followed by a second deadly 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit near Ekinozu, causing catastrophic destruction, mass displacement, and devastating numbers of fatalities, missing persons, and injuries. HelpAge has been working for several years with local partners who are present in the affected areas and is scaling up an emergency life-saving response to urgently support older people and their families in the affected areas, with an age-inclusive, gender and disability inclusive programme. Our response plan includes health support, cash/NFI assistance, shelter support, Protection and Mental Health and Psychosocial First Aid*.*

We are seeking a passionate, professional and experienced candidate to support our response to the Turkey-Syrian earthquake crisis, someone who thrives in collaborating with others (inside HelpAge International and beyond) and who can work in agile ways and across boundaries.

Key areas for impact/influence and responsibilities:

The Turkey-Syria Earthquake Response Manager will be responsible for the overall management of the Humanitarian response programme in Turkey and Syria, which will be implemented by local partners, and will work closely with the Eurasia-Middle East Humanitarian Programme Manager. This will include program design and implementation, proposal preparation (with support from humanitarian staff), partner capacity building and support, quality assurance and monitoring, donor and stakeholder representation.

• Develop overall programmatic response and support 2-5 local implementing partners in programme start-up/scale up in response to the catastrophic earthquake in Turkey and North-West Syria.
• Oversee the programme management of humanitarian partner-led response, in line with Humanitarian Inclusion Standards, in earthquake affected communities
• Monitor the quality of the humanitarian response, supporting implementing partners, making recommendations for change where needed to improve the impact on the lives of older people
• Work closely with the implanting partner organisations, including building their capacity, to ensure a high quality, age-friendly, inclusive, coordinated response
• Identify and develop new funding opportunities and project partnerships to build a humanitarian portfolio of work and increase the impact for older people in the response.
• Lead coordination between local implementing partners, HelpAge global teams and supporting members / donors
• With support from the EME HPM, lead on Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning for the response, tracking progress, sharing and utilizing related information, data, learning and evidence across the organisation and externally
• Ensure security of all staff and assets and compliance with external standards and internal requirements
• Act as primary representative with host governments, other officials in charge, donors, clusters, UN agencies and other International and national NGOs
• With the HelpAge Global Communications Manager be the primary spokesperson for HelpAge International on the ground which may include various media.

Let’s talk about you

You will be someone with:

• Extensive experience managing complex multi-sector programs in an acute emergency situation
• Experience managing multi donor funded projects including experience working with key emergency donors such as DEC, ECHO, Appeal funds, Trust and Foundations
• Demonstrable experience in leadership and programme management with local partners and geographically dispersed teams and in challenging humanitarian contexts
• Substantial experience in all aspects of Project Cycle Management with particular focus on proposal development, quality assurance, monitoring,
• Excellent interpersonal skills and a demonstrated ability to lead effectively in insecure environments
• An ability to represent HelpAge with traditional and non-traditional partners, donors and networks.
• Extensive knowledge of humanitarian principles, standards and human rights.
• Experienced in strengthening and supporting staff and national partner capacity
• An ability to travel, occasionally at short notice.
• Strong oral and written Arabic and English language communication skills required

Desirable

• Previous work experience in Syria or with Syrian communities (IDPs / refugees)
• Experience of working with older people and people with disabilities

Safeguarding

HelpAge International is committed to safeguarding the communities with which we work, our partners, staff, and any others who we come into contact with.

Therefore, you will also be responsible for:

• Preventing harm and abuse from our people, operations and programmes to anyone that encounters our work
• Reporting all safeguarding incidents you see, hear, hear about or suspect, using our internal reporting mechanism
• Complying with all safeguarding framework policies and practices
• Completing mandatory training courses relating to our safeguarding policy framework and complying with HR vetting procedures

Diversity & Inclusion

HelpAge International is dedicated to creating a diverse and inclusive environment for all its employees/consultants while extending the culture of inclusion into our work.

We believe that our workforce should reflect the wide diversity of the communities we serve, and that diverse voices should be elevated and intentionally integrated into our work. We embrace difference and diversity of identity, experience, and thought, and actively strive for inclusive behaviors across our organization and work regardless of gender, race, disability, age, nationality, ethnic/national origin, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, marital status, pregnancy, social status, and political beliefs.