Senior Communications Officer - East Africa at Blue Ventures

Responsibilities

Content creation and gathering (60%)

• Working closely with colleagues, you will coordinate, draft original content and focus on producing stories written, video, audio and photography stories in line with BV's strategic priorities, raising the profile of community-led marine conservation and small-scale fisheries management efforts in East Africa, highlighting the work of our team and partner organisations, and tracking stories for the BV blog and social media storytelling across platforms.
• Working with the Social Media Officer to disseminate EA information to an international audience in bite-sized communications outputs, i.e., photos, short videos, quotes, and social media reels.
• Contribute content from EAC to developing and delivering social media strategies
• and campaigns, providing regular short updates for our channels, capturing updates from our team and partners and sharing the latest in marine conservation, small-scale fisheries and BV's human rights-based approach to conservation, and celebrating partner and network news and events.
• Building & nurturing relationships with amplifier partners such as WIOMSA, Nairobi and Convention round-up, etc., to amplify BV's work in EAC.
• Work closely with the Digital Media Manager, with guidance from the Regional
• Comms Lead and Head of Communications, to feed into film and digital media strategy and to grow and nurture a collaborative multimedia group across the organisation.
• Building & nurturing relationships with country teams in EAC by leading regular catch-ups and updating colleagues on events, news and programmes from the region

Partner relationship & support (30%)

• Track communication opportunities across our BV's work, engaging proactively with colleagues and partners across sites in EAC to document learning and share stories.
• Provide communications support photography, videography, etc. – for BV and partner events in EAC
• Train partners on conservation storytelling techniques (storytelling, mobile photography and participatory video filming) as needed
• Support BV partners with the review of communications outputs and ideas as needed
• Contribute actively to BV's internal communications, raising the voice and profile of its work in East Africa to the global team

Tech support, project management & admin (10%)

• Lead on writing agendas, taking notes, planning itineraries, keeping Trello organised and running a tight organisational ship
• Set up photo and blogs, and news stories on the BV website and update photo and video libraries as needed.
• Contribute to collaborative systems for scheduling communications with our global communications team.

Skills and experience

Required

• Demonstratable experience in a communications role
• Fluency in written and spoken English and Kiswahili
• Demonstrable skills in the communication of complex information to a diverse range of stakeholders
• Demonstrable experience in producing and managing content for online blogs, websites and social media platforms
• Competence in documentary photography & videography
• Understanding of participatory approaches to communications in a development context, including ethical considerations
• Excellent time management and organisational skills
• Confident, strong interpersonal skills and ability to relate to and work effectively with individuals from a wide range of backgrounds and cultures, at all levels
• Capacity to undertake research and development work independently as well as part of an international team, collaborating remotely across time zones