Learning through Education and Access to Skills for Employment (LEAP)
Kalobeyei Settlement, Kakuma Refugee Camp and surrounding host communities
Position title: Consultant Gender Advisor
Position location: Nairobi, with regular travel to Kakuma and Kalobeyei
Reports to: GESI Advisor and LEAP project Manager
Duration: 96 days / April 2023-March 2024
Introduction
World University Service of Canada (WUSC) is a Canadian non-profit organization working to create a better world for all young people. We bring together a diverse network of students, volunteers, schools, government, and businesses who share this vision. Together, we foster youth-centered solutions for improved education, economic, and empowerment opportunities to overcome inequality and exclusion in over 15 countries around the world. WUSC believes that if youth have access to and benefit from inclusive, quality education opportunities from primary to post-secondary, then they will develop the knowledge, skills, and capacities they need to secure a better quality of life. WUSC has been active in the education sector for several decades, with a strong focus on improving education access and quality in conflict-affected and fragile contexts to ensure that even the most marginalized youth can change their lives through education.
WUSC is currently implementing the Learning through Education and Access to Skills for Employment Project (LEAP) with a grant of $12.4 million (CAD) from Global Affairs Canada (GAC). Launched in 2019, LEAP is enhancing education opportunities for adolescent girls and provide access to gender-responsive and market-based skills training for young women with the ultimate goal of increasing the empowerment of female youth in Kalobeyei Settlement, Kakuma Refugee Camp, and the surrounding host communities in Turkana County in northern Kenya.
WUSC is seeking a consultant to provide technical gender input and oversight across all components of the LEAP project. The consultant will work alongside project staff and other technical advisors (in and outside of Kenya) and will be expected to provide technical support in relation to project design, implementation and evaluation over the remaining duration of the project.
Background of the LEAP Project
LEAP is designed to address gender, social, cultural, and economic barriers that affect adolescent girls’ and young women’s ability to access education and employment opportunities and make critical decisions about things that affect their lives. Consisting of a large range of interventions, including teacher training, life skills education, financial assistance through cash transfers, media campaigns, community outreach and engagement for behavior change, psychosocial support, mentorship programs, market-based skills training, and training in digital skills, LEAP not only support girls and young women directly but also aims to address the root causes of inequality by challenging and helping to transform structural barriers and entrenched social norms, attitudes, and power relations that impact girls’ ability to thrive. The LEAP program is implementing an adaptation to SASA! Called Power to Girls, which seeks to enhance the safety and empowerment of adolescent girls. This approach to violence prevention includes girl-centered programming, activities in schools with learners and teachers, and holistic community-wide activism. LEAP was launched in 2019, and will run until 2024, and aims to reach a total of 40,000 adolescent girls and young women.
Nature and Scope of the Role
WUSC is seeking a consultant to provide gender technical input and oversight across all components of the LEAP project, but will primarily focus on the gender-transformative components of the program and integration of Power to Girls into 1) life skills education, 2) community norms and behavior change, and 3) safe and supportive schools programming.
The duration of the consultancy will be 96 days between April 2023 and March 2024.
The consultant will work alongside project staff and other technical advisors (in and outside of Kenya) and will be expected to provide technical support in relation to project design, implementation and evaluation over the remaining duration of the project, specifically in line with the following:
- Work with project staff, partner organizations and other relevant stakeholders to develop implementation plans for the gender-transformative components of the LEAP project, including violence prevention, life skills, community behavior change, school-based empowerment activities, and teacher training.
- Work with project staff, partner organizations and other relevant stakeholders to adapt GBV prevention programming to the Kakuma and Kalobeyei context and to integrate it into the LEAP program.
- Support the design and facilitation of key trainings, including with teachers, community leaders, psychosocial counselors, and community mobilizers to ensure content is of high quality and aligned to project aims and key outcomes.
- Engage in regular project team meetings to provide updates, inputs and advice.
- Engage with project teams in annual work planning and other key planning events to ensure that gender strategies and practices are relevant to and reflect the reality on the ground.
- Work closely with partner organizations to ensure their outputs are technically sound and contextually relevant.
- Provide feedback and review technical documents and reports on project-related activities, especially as related to gender interventions and practice
- Review project reports and communication with donors to ensure programmatic achievements are communicated accurately and appropriately.
- Work closely with the M&E team to ensure that monitoring and evaluation systems are designed to appropriately measure progress against gender-specific outcomes and results, as well as development learning agendas for specific project components.
Qualifications and Competencies
- Senior level technical consultant with background in gender equality, with specific knowledge and experience in relation to violence prevention and social norms and behavior change programming. Experience implementing SASA! is a plus.
- A minimum of 5 years of experience working and/or consulting in development/humanitarian education programming, with specific experience in Kakuma/Turkana or similar refugee contexts desirable.
- Strong knowledge and understanding of the challenges faced by young people, particularly girls’, in the project locations.
- Experience in developing and drafting technical content in relation to violence prevention and girls’ empowerment.
- Experience designing and delivering participatory training rooted in adult learning principles.
- Strong analytical and research skills.
- Proven ability to work productively with a variety of stakeholders to run participatory processes and meet deadlines with an emphasis on producing quality products.
- Effective interpersonal and cross-cultural communication skills.
How to apply
Applications
WUSC’s activities seek to balance inequities and create sustainable development around the globe; the work ethic of our staff, volunteers, representatives and partners shall correspond to the values and mission of the organization. WUSC promotes responsibility, respect, honesty, and professional excellence and we will not tolerate harassment, coercion, sexual exploitation or abuse of any form. Successful applicants will be required to undertake an enhanced criminal record check where appropriate.
WUSC is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome and encourage applications from people with disabilities. Only those candidates selected for an interview will be contacted. No telephone calls please.
If you wish to apply for this role, please follow this link to register on WUSC’s candidate database.
