Scholarship Officer at Shining Hope For Communities

Job Overview:

SHOFCO is looking for an experienced grassroots-based approach practitioner to manage scholarship processes across counties, to support vulnerable girls to thrive within and beyond school. The role will be embedded within SHOFCO’s SHOFCO Urban Network (SUN) approach to community organising, and ensure scholar identification and support remains strongly grass-roots based.

The ideal candidate should have education, program design, and facilitation experience in Kenya, including successfully working with urban and rural low-income communities, and is personally aligned with SHOFCO’s value of staying “grassroots” and always listening to and empowering the community.

Key Roles and Responsibilities:

Lead Mentoring Program during for girls during Holidays

• Contribute to the review of an integrated curriculum for the mentoring program (holiday program), including any localization needed as guided by learnings provided by SUN
• Schedule and implement a holiday mentoring program for all scholars from the region.
• Prepare training content materials, identify and train ToTs and mentors in partnership with the coordinator
• Support the Scholarship Coordinators to give input and implement the holiday program in the region

Activate Financial Payments and Disbursements

• Audit, structure and input all financial requests and disbursements including tuition fee payments, stipends and any other financial-related initiatives
• Liaise with the procurement department to request for and receive any equipment, stationery and other items required by the department
• Track costs and generate reports on spend to aid in measuring performance against set targets

Lead Teacher/School Engagement

• Implement teacher engagement framework in designated regions to implement safeguarding and administrative initiatives across schools with scholarship beneficiaries.
• Work with elected SUN committee members to build relations with schools within the region for scholar support.

Build Capacity for Scholar Support

• Train the Coordinators, SHOFCO Urban Network (SUN) community facilitators and elected committee members and any other SHOFCO staff to implement programming
• Support skill-building among staff at schools where scholarship recipients attend as necessary

Support Strategic Direction

• Support the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of recruitment, selection, onboarding, and scholar support processes and procedures
• Support partnership development with organizations and institutions supporting vulnerable girls within the region of jurisdiction to advance and strengthen the ecosystem of support

Support Innovation

• With the support of the Scholarship Manager and other SHOFCO team members, co-design the recruitment, selection, disbursement, and monitoring and evaluation of scholarships
• Provide insights as they arise to improve programmatic impact and efficiency

Required Skills:

• Financial management and reporting
• Data manipulation, analysis and management
• Partnership building and networking
• Vertical and horizontal communication

Qualifications:

• At least 3 years of experience working in either educational programs or community-based organizations supporting youth.
• Minimum bachelor's degree.
• Experience in program design and training/facilitation with strong understanding of adult learning principles.
• Strong interpersonal skills with ability to build personal relationships with students, staff, local community leaders and members, school and government officials
• High sense of professionalism in performing duties.
• Dedicated, proactive, and results-driven.
• Detail oriented and well-organized
• Strong communication (written and oral), negotiation, and administration skills.
• Propensity to thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic work environment.