Advocacy and Campaigns Officer at Save The Children

Save The ChildrenKaduna, Nigeria Networking and Tech Support

Full Time

Save the Children invests in childhood - every day, in times of crisis and for our future. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. By transforming children's lives now, we change the course of their future and ours. Please give monthly and support our mission. Save the Children is working to strengthen health systems and support maternal and child health in four northern states. Much work needs to be done for Nigeria to deliver its promises on Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 (which aim to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health) before 2015. Facts About Nigeria More than 173 Million people live there The average girl stays in school only until she's 9 123 out of 1000 children die before their 5th birthday A parent earns an average of just $4 a day Our Work Save the Children has been working in Nigeria since 2001. We're helping to improve health systems in northern Nigeria to delivery maternal, newborn, and child health services, including the revival of routine immunization.

SCOPE AND ROLE PURPOSE:

The Advocacy and Community Mobilization Officer will be responsible for the community engagements for ROOSC project. S/he will engage and mobilize local communities in Kaduna State to support the educational inclusion of out-of-school children. This role involves working closely with community leaders, families, schools, and other stakeholders to raise awareness about the importance of education, address barriers to school attendance, and support the enrolment and retention of out-of-school children.

Alongside the Advocacy and Community Engagement Coordinator, the role will collaborate and work closely with the Education Coordinator, GESI Specialist, MEAL Coordinator, Child Protection officers, Advocacy, Campaign and Policy Manager/Learn, Project Director, Field Manager, and Community Mobilization and engagement Manager – ensuring that there is an effective and coordinated team spearheading SCI Nigeria’s influence towards an accelerated positive change for all children, specially girls, to access quality, safe, inclusive, uninterrupted and free education.

S/he will work closely with focal points on the implementation of the advocacy and community engagements.

S/he will coordinate and oversee the Community Mobilization Assistant to ensure monthly, quarterly and annual advocacy reports that feeds into CO and donors report. S/he will work closely with the Advocacy and Community Engagement Coordinator, the CO ACCM Unit to develop relevant materials, such as but not limited to policy briefs/briefing messages, concept notes, guidelines and undertake actions to create enabling environment and promote increasing government and community commitment and action on children’s rights to education.

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

Community Engagement and Mobilization

Collaborate with the MEAL Coordinator, Education Coordinator and Advocacy and Community engagement Coordinator to conduct community assessments to identify out-of-school children and understand barriers to education.
Work with the Advocacy and Community Engagement Coordinator and other TAs to develop and implement community mobilization strategies to increase awareness and support for education.
Organize community meetings, forums, and events to engage stakeholders and disseminate information about the project.
Foster relationships with community leaders, parents, teachers, and local organizations to gain their support and collaboration.

Advocacy and Community Engagement

Jointly develop, coordinate and manage Advocacy and Community engagements plans, in order to influence relevant stakeholders at the local level and achieve required changes at local government levels.
Lead Advocacy and community engagements at local government and community levels on Universal Basic Education, develop key messages for influencing state policy reviews, processes and discussions.
Champion, promote, coordinate and manage the implementation of out of school children Campaign Strategy in collaboration with the Advocacy and Engagement Coordinator and Advocacy, Campaign and Policy Manager Learn.
In collaboration with the MEAL Coordinator, s/he shall track, measure, monitor and evaluate the quality of integration and implementation of advocacy and community engagement in the implementation of the project.
Contribute to the development of annual work plans, budgets, reports and document case studies and success stories on the ROOSC project.
Ensure maximum visibility of Save the Children according to the branding guidelines both internally and externally across relevant platforms.
Ensure that children are at the heart of advocacy and community engagements activities, and they are an integral part of Save the Children’s campaigning work.
Ensure proper documentation and dissemination of major activities, successes and learnings related to ROOSC.

Strengthen Networking and Partnership

S/he shall represent SCI Nigeria in local level engagements, and shall create, nurture, strengthen and maintain strategic partnership with other key stakeholders in the education sector at the LGA level.
Work with Media and Communication team, Education Coordinator, Safeguarding Officer and Project Director to develop case studies for the project and ensure that these meet Save the Children Child Safeguarding Policies
In collaboration with the CO Media and Communication Manager, Advocacy, Campaign and Policy (ACP) Manager/learn, s/he will identify story ideas on lessons learned and experiences for development of success stories and other communication materials.
Explore opportunities to communicate about ROOSC project deliverables and its impact internally and externally, with a wide variety of state and national level stakeholders using innovative methods.
Act as SCI Nigeria’s representative at local government level as required, mainly in events relating to education advocacy, and community engagement.
Develop and maintain a professional network for governance issues within project state and within SCI Nigeria.
Provide support and guidance to community-based organizations and parent-teacher associations to strengthen their capacity to support education initiatives.
Contribute to the bi-weekly ACCM Country Wide coordination meeting and produce stories and case studies for publication in the monthly Jebb Times.

Others

Participate in all ACCM activities, meetings, annual review workshops and trainings.
Perform other duties as assigned by the Advocacy & Community Engagement Coordinator, Project Director, Field Manager, ACP Manager/Learn or ACCM Director.\

SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

Essential

Level of Education – Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences, Education, Community Development, or a related field.
Experience: At least 3 years of experience in community mobilization, outreach, or education projects, preferably working with marginalized or out-of-school children.
Language Requirements – English – Excellent with a good knowledge of Hausa language
Level of IT Expertise Required – Excellent
Ability to write very good position papers and policy briefings
Strong analytical framework to clearly articulate and communicate our policy positions.
Ability to be strategic and proactive when required to be able to keep advocacy plans dynamic and aligned to new policy and political developments.
Ability to clearly communicate and easily relate to local government authorities.
Able to demonstrate positive attitude, diplomatic, negotiator, and team player.
Experience of working in a multi-cultural environment and respect for diversity
Comply with the requirements of Save the Children’s commitment to protect children in accordance with the Child Safeguarding Policy