Summary
Date Posted: Thursday, September 17, 2020 , Base Salary: Not Disclosed

JOB DETAILS:
Call for Proposals: Conduct programs on reducing early and unintended pregnancies (EUP) including facilitating the EUP Lets Talk! Campaign
1. Summary
UNESCO seeks the services of an implementing partner to conduct programs on reducing early and unintended pregnancies (EUP) including facilitating the EUP Lets Talk! Campaign. This is aimed at increasing community awareness and support for reducing EUPs under the five-year project entitled, Our Rights, Our Lives, Our Future (O3).
2. Background
UNESCO is supporting the government of Zambia through the Ministry of General Education to implement comprehensive sexuality education through the project Our Rights, Our Lives, Our Future (O3 Zambia) which seeks to improve sexual and reproductive health (SRHR), gender, and education outcomes for adolescents and young people in Zambia through sustained reductions in new HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, early and unintended pregnancy, and gender-based violence.
Adolescent girls and young women are shaping humanity’s present and future. Depending on the opportunities and choices girls have during adolescence, they can begin adulthood as empowered and active citizens, or risk being neglected, voiceless and entrenched in poverty. When adolescent girls are exposed to early and unprotected sex, pregnancy or acquisition of sexually transmitted infections including HIV can occur too early and predispose girls to risks and vulnerabilities that limit their healthy transition into adulthood. This further prevents them from achieving their full potential, and in turn limits potential for sustainable and inclusive national development. The primary drivers of EUP are; poverty and related low education levels; lack of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE); lack of access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services including contraception; lack of parent-child communication regarding sexuality; cultural norms that support child marriage (both leading to and resulting from EUP), and peer/partner pressure. Once an EUP is experienced, the negative impacts can include poor physical, emotional, educational, and economic outcomes. EUP may lead to such physically harmful outcomes as maternal mortality or morbidity (including obstetric fistula), HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
3. Zambia Let’s Talk! Campaign 2020 and beyond
The Let’s Talk! Campaign is an Eastern and Southern African response to the problem of early and unintended pregnancies (EUP) among adolescents and young people in both regions. Zambia is one of the countries that is participating in this campaign as it has not been spared from this crisis. The Zambia Let’s Talk! EUP Campaign was launched on 26th September, 2019 at Kabulonga Girls Secondary School in Lusaka, Zambia. The objectives of the EUP campaign include among others raising awareness about the alarming rates of EUP in the country and call for urgent policy and programmatic action; create awareness and bring attention to the need for scaling up comprehensive sexuality education and youth-friendly SRHR services for adolescents and young people and to create opportunities to secure more partnerships for the campaign and for further addressing the issue.
The Zambia Let’s Talk! campaign is premised on three key focus areas namely education, health and rights. The education component is aimed at ensuring that adolescents have an equal right to education and have the requisite knowledge to make informed life choices and delay pregnancy through comprehensive sexuality education they would have received. Health focuses on advocating to ensure access to sexual reproductive health services for adolescents, without judgement or discrimination. The rights area ensures that all adolescents know their rights and are empowered to make decisions regarding sexuality, health and education that will allow them to reach their full potential. The implementation of the campaign will target various levels of the social ecological model of change such as the individual, interpersonal, community, organisational and policy levels.
Social Behaviour Change Multimedia Campaign
UNESCO’s Global Guidance on education sector responses to EUP recommends five main pillars to ensure girls continued access to education:
a) Access to quality education for all girls
b) Providing all young people with good quality comprehensive sexuality education
c) Ensuring pregnant and childbearing girls have the right to education through development and effective implementation of re-entry policies
d) Increasing adolescents’ access to health services through the establishment of a referral system between schools and health facilities
e) Eliminating stigma and discrimination toward pregnant and childbearing girls in the context of education institutions and the community
A social and behaviour change campaign is an evidence-based, organized effort that combines innovation and creativity to deliver messages to motivate individuals to change behaviours and social norms. The Zambia Let’s Talk! campaign aims to create momentum for change at each level of the social system in the ten provinces of the country by providing materials which facilitate conversations among stakeholders, communities and families on the issues impacting EUP prevention and management, and demand for change. .

3. Scope of Work
The implementing partner will be expected to facilitate and implement EUP programs and support Let’s Talk! Campaign activities at national and community levels. The implementing partner is expected to lead the campaign using multimedia tools and mobilize communities in reducing early and unintended pregnancies in Zambia. Specifically, the implementing partners will conduct the following activities;
1. Support UNESCO and the government of Zambia to conduct national level multimedia Let’s Talk! Campaign activities on EUP.
2. Support and implement community EUP prevention and management activities including the engagement of communities (including men and boys) to reduce stigma around EUP using different modalities including mass media
3. Support and implement activities that promote parent-child communication and parental involvement on EUP and access to SRHR services.
4. Deliverables
The deliverables of the partnership will be as follows;
I. Quarterly reports on Let’s Talk! Campaign. The reports must include the number people reached with the campaign.
II. Quarterly reports on community EUP prevention and management activities implemented. The report must indicate the number of people reached disaggregated by gender
III. Quarterly reports on activities implemented to promote parent child communication on reducing EUP including the number of people reached disaggregated by gender
5. Description of Activity and Timeframe
I. Kick off meeting and review of project documents and submission of inception report, October, 2020 II. Support the UNESCO and the government of Zambia to conduct national level multimedia Let’s Talk! Campaign activities on EUP and submission of quarterly reports by February, 2020
III. Support and implement activities that promote parent-child communication and parental involvement on EUP and access to SRHR services and submission of quarterly reports incorporating activities 2 and 3 by March, 2021

Job Skills: Not Specified

6. Qualifications and Requirements
Expertise of the firm
The implementing partners are expected to have the following qualifications and skills;
• Mandatory for the organisation to demonstrate a minimum of 2 years’ experience in implementing programs in the education and health sectors
• Mandatory for the organisation to demonstrate experience in implementing campaigns on CSE and SRHR programs in Zambia.
• Proven experience in report writing, supported by at least 2 references
• Experience working with UNESCO or other UN agencies is desirable
7. Reporting
The contract will be managed by the UNESCO Zambia office.
8. Evaluation of Proposals
Interested CSOs are requested to submit a Technical and Financial proposal. The Technical proposal will be evaluated on the basis of responsiveness to the Terms of Reference (TORs).

Job Education Requirements: Not Specified

Job Experience Requirements: Not Specified

Work Hours: 8

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Job application procedure
9. Submission of Proposals
The offer, comprising of technical proposal and financial proposal should reach the following email address no later than 1st October, 2020 at 17:00 hours Central Africa Time (CAT) en.sichimba@unesco.org
Submissions which do not meet the above mandatory requirements will not be reviewed.

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