SOS Children’s Villages Malawi
FIELD OFFICER – NGABU EXTENSION PROJECT
SOS Children’s Villages Malawi is a non-governmental child development organization that started its operations in Malawi in 1994. We envision every child belonging to a family and growing with love, respect and security. We achieve this through building families for children in need, helping them shape their own futures and sharing in the development of their communities.
Through our Children’s Village Programmes (CVP) we support children who have lost parental care and those at risk of losing parental care to develop within a caring family environment to their full potential as contributing members of their respective societies.
We are currently operating 4 SOS Children’s Villages Programmes in Blantyre, Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Ngabu. It is in this context that we are looking for a suitable candidate to fill the position of Field Officer at our SOS Ngabu Programme in Chikwawa District. The successful candidate will be on the fixed term contract which will ran up to 31st December 2024.
The Field Officer will be based at Ngabu in Chikwawa and reporting to the FS Manager, the Field Officer is responsible for facilitating the capacity building of project participating families, Community Based Organizations, and other duty bearers for the survival, development, and protection of children at risk of losing parental care within their families of origin with a focus on care, education, and health.
Main responsibilities include:
1. Project Participation
- Support Community Task Forces in the identification of project participants.
- Facilitate active participation of children in all FS processes.
- Facilitate the formation and functioning of family support groups.
- Facilitate the identification and training of community facilitators/peer educators in Family Development Planning.
- Maintaining and updating files for project participants.
2. Planning and budgeting
- Support Community Task Force, families, and communities in the assessment of root causes leading to child abandonment at family and community levels through use of appropriate participatory tools.
- Facilitate the identification of opportunities and mobilization of local resources for the action plan to meet the needs of each household and community.
- Support the preparation of individualized family development plans and community development plans
- Facilitate the development of emergency preparedness plans against potential disasters.
- Facilitate the planning of ensuring gender balance in decision-making and in all project processes.
3. Capacity building of families.
- Facilitate the empowerment of facilitators/peer/ peer educators in Family Development Planning for their effective and efficient contribution to the strengthening of families.
- Organise and Facilitate families/caregivers access to child rights and other paralegal issues training and support
- Facilitate families/caregivers access to income generation training and support;
- Facilitate the families/caregivers access to nutrition and food security training and support;
- Facilitate the families/caregivers access to health care training and support;
- Facilitate the families/caregivers access to parenting skills and psychosocial counselling.
4. Capacity building
- Facilitate and support the initial CBO capacity assessment to come up with the CBO Development Plan.
- Facilitate the development of the CBO’s organizational management capacity. that is, formation of properly constituted boards & committees, writing CBO constitution, legal registration of CBO, developing the CBO vision statement, mission statement, strategy and values.
- Support the CBO capacity building of systems in Financial and accounting policies, procurement policies
and procedures, resource mobilization strategies, human resource management policies, project reporting procedures and strategic plans. - Organise and Support the capacity building of CBO members in leadership and governance, decision-making, conflict resolution and mentoring.
- Facilitate the CBO capacity building of networks in terms of identifying strategic partners, forging alliances with other service providers and putting in place a memorandum of understanding.
- Organize and facilitate the training in child rights planning.
5. Networking and Partnerships
- Facilitate stakeholder analysis within the project, maintaining and updating stakeholders’ profiles.
- Collaborate with community development structures, other NGOs and government departments for effective service delivery to programme participants.
- Support functional sustainability of community-based children’s support and other relevant development initiatives.
- Represent the FS in community forums.
- Identifying opportunities for partnerships within the project area.
6. Disaster preparedness and response
- Support the CBO capacity building in emergency preparedness and response.
- Support Humanitarian work in the Programme
7. Monitoring and Evaluation
- Facilitate participatory monitoring and evaluation of the project interventions.
- Facilitate regular data collection through appropriate monitoring tools on project interventions.
- Facilitate the regular counting of key project participants.
- Organize and facilitate regular project reviews with Community Family Development Planning Facilitators and other service providers on FSP.
- Carry out regular home visits to families on the project and write home visit reports.
- Carry out regular visits to CBOs, family support groups and other partners in the respective community for timely and relevant project support.
- Facilitate sharing of best practice amongst family groups.
- Participation in budget tracking/variance analysis
- Prepare and submit timely progress reports to the FSP Coordinator on project interventions.
The suitable candidate must have the following minimum qualifications and attributes:
- Bachelor’s degree in Development Studies, Social Work, Agriculture, and any other relevant qualifications from recognized universities.
- 3 years’ experience in implementing child and community development programmes.
- Sound understanding of child rights, rights-based programming, and management of CBOs.
- Good communication and reporting skills
- Possession of a motorcycle license is a must.
Method Of Application
Interested persons should submit their applications together with detailed Curriculum Vitae with three
traceable referees to:
The Head of Human Resource & OD
SOS Children’s Villages Malawi.
P. O. Box 2359
LILONGWE
Or email recruitment.sosmw@sos-malawi.org.
Please ensure that you include your full contact details including telephone numbers. The closing date for receiving applications is 31st May 2023. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.
SOS CHILDREN’S VILLAGES IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER, ALL QUALIFIED CANDIDATES ARE ENCOURAGED TO APPLY.