Community Engagement Advisor at Ipas Africa

Job description

The Community Engagement Advisor works with in-country team to plan, implement and monitor innovative community-based projects that increase awareness of and access to women’s reproductive health care. The project for this position focuses on post abortion contraceptive uptake and continuation for women and girls who access and use medical abortion pills outside of health facilities. The Community Engagement Advisor is responsible for coordinating Ipas Kenya’s development and implementation of project interventions, in collaboration with country team, Ipas NC (North Carolina), local partner organizations and individuals. In addition to achieving project goals, the Community Engagement Advisor works at the organizational level to advance Ipas’s vision to improve community efforts related to sexual and reproductive health rights.

• Coordinates Ipas Kenya's implementation of the Post MA Contraception (PMAC) project
• Coordinates and contributes significantly to the multiple project teams working on PMAC, including the research team, design team, and intervention team
• Coordinates the formation of the Kenyan Technical Advisory Group (TAG) and coordinates TAG communications and meetings
• Conducts a desk review of project-relevant documents, following the guidance provided by Ipas as well as providing recommendations for additional sources and topics
• Contributes to the PMAC formative research protocol
• Leads preparation, submission and follow-up of the ethics approval process for the PMAC project
• Liaises with the PMAC external research partner to ensure adherence to the research protocol, and provide input as needed
• Serves as a member on the PMAC user-centered design team.
• Liaises with the PMAC external evaluation partner to provide information and access to project data and other resources, according to the evaluation protocol.
• Establishes and develops links with organizations, institutions and interested groups to inform them about the PMAC project and engage them in project activities (as appropriate)
• Ensures that all project training and orientation materials include content that is applicable to different community groups
• Participates in the development and facilitation of capacity building trainings for partner NGOs and community-based organizations (CBOs)
• Contributes to documentation of project outcomes; shares results organizationally and as appropriate to stakeholders
• Monitors and contributes to the analysis of PMAC results and summarizes technical results for cross-unit sharing and organizationally as appropriate
• Develops community access project designs, timelines, budgets, and work plans in collaboration with in-country team
• Coordinates and facilitates user centered design processes for Ipas Kenya and partners.
• Supports the accurate documentation and data from the field office to the Global Teams to support documentation and organizational learning
• Represents Ipas at local community stakeholder fora as necessary as appropriate.
• Performs other duties as assigned

Minimum

• Bachelor’s degree in related field
• 5+ years’ relevant experience, including project management experience
• Must possess the ability to work with different community populations, including adolescents and women’s groups, as well as health professionals and pharmacists, especially in the areas of communication and training
• Must be able to negotiate and communicate with community, state and private organizations’ leaderships
• Must have working knowledge of conceptualizing, implementing and monitoring community-based interventions and initiatives
• Experience working with community based reproductive health projects, a plus
• Knowledge and experience in community mobilization, capacity building and training of community groups
• Working knowledge of grant management
• Experience in monitoring and mentoring community/communication initiatives in the field
• Experience working in the Public Health field, especially sexual and reproductive health,
• Must be familiar with working with youths and adolescents
• Working knowledge of community entry strategies
• Fluent in English and Kiswahili

Preferred

• Previous experience with user-centered/human-centered design
• Proposal and report writing skills
• Strong communication skills
• Ability to work under strict project deadlines and milestones
• Attention to detail
• Drive for results
• Good computer skills
• Willingness to work beyond office hours occasionally to participate in meetings with NC staff or for time sensitive assignments

Ipas is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, age, pregnancy, disability, work-related injury, covered veteran status, political ideology, genetic information, marital status, or any other factor that the law protects from employment discrimination.