Summary
Date Posted: Tuesday, February 04 2025, Base Salary: Not Disclosed

JOB DETAILS:
SOS Children’s Villages Zambia is a child-focused organization and an affiliate of the SOS Children Villages International. It is non-governmental, non-political, non-denominational, and non-racial. Its overall mission is to build families for children in need, help them shape their own futures, and share in the development of their communities. To realise the mission of the organisation, SOS Children’s Villages is recruiting for the underlisted position.
SOS Children’s Villages holds strict child and youth safeguarding principles and has a zero-tolerance policy for conducts of sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse in the workplace and other places where the organization’s activities are rendered. Recruitment decisions will give due emphasis to assessing candidates’ value congruence and thorough background checks and police clearance reference check processes.

Role Objective
This position reports to the Family Strengthening (FS) Coordinator and works closely with the Location Program team. The Project Officer – Education and Health is responsible to facilitate access to education and health services for children, young people, caregivers, and community in liaison with the services providers, community-based partners, development partners, and other duty bearers. He/she is responsible for facilitating the capacity building of FSP-supported families, communities, and duty bearers to effectively protect and care for their children sustainably in cooperation with local authorities and other service providers, enabling children who are at risk of losing the care of the families to grow within a caring and healthy family environment.

Key Competencies
Planning and Coordination
• Ability to coordinate activities and required resources to support successful execution of programme activities, working well with technical and operational staff.
• Ability to scan the local environment, determine key success factors and bring relevant players on board.
• Ability to coordinate with other industry players and initiate dialogue for collaboration where deemed feasible.
• Ability to work with Program Coordinators/Project Manager to define and implement programme activities.
Compliance and Audit
• Adhere to all internal procurement processes and procedures.
• Develop and maintain budgets, provide monthly forecasts on spending and projected budget needs.
• Ensure relevant programme documentation is in place to support activities as per internal audit procedures.
• Ensure follow-up with partners and other stakeholders to agreed deliverables and program parameters.
Writing and Editing
• Ability to communicate ideas well and secure approvals through project concepts.
• Ability to capture succinctly, the relevance of selected programme activities to strategic objectives through project plans and other internal approval documents.
• Periodically support reporting to donors’ progress on activities pursued as indicated in the approved annual work plans.
• Documentation of activities leading to success for purposes of organisational learning.
• Excellent English writer with attention to detail.
Compliance
• Ability to follow SOS Children’s Villages implementing procedures and overall compliance.
• Understands and applies the principles of safeguarding, evaluation and selection, legal frameworks, deliverables, timeframes, payment, and closing out.
Contract Management
• Initiation of processes and collating of relevant information for contracting of external consultants, companies, partnership agreements as required.
• Ability to coordinate with and provide timely information to staff members involved in contract drafting, preparations and contract signing, follow-up, and closure.
• Ensure that partners follow contract stipulations, deliverables, and timely reporting.
Administration
• Thoroughness in implementing procedures and documentation processes as per SOS Children policy.
Qualifications and Personal Attributes
• Degree in Community Development, Public Health/Health Science, Education, Rural Development, or Social Science.
• At least 3 years’ experience in implementing community development or Orphans and Vulnerable Children support programmes.
• Sound understanding of child rights, child development, family and community development, rights-based programming, and management of CBOs.
• Understanding and ability to apply community development participatory methodologies.
• Possession of a driving license will be an added advantage.
• Ability to work in a team.
• Respect for different cultures and religions.
• Knowledge and experience of donor funding guidelines.
• Demonstrated Project Management experience and successful implementation achievements.
• Excellent knowledge of relevant MS Office packages necessary for day-to-day works.
• Good numeracy and attention to detail with an ability to work within tight deadlines.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and an ability to work effectively with dynamic and diverse staff and management across all levels, both internally and externally.
• Ability to think creatively and independently.
Key Responsibilities
Programme Participation
• Facilitate the formation and development of Community health and education support Task Force to spearhead education and health activities.
• Organise and facilitate training of Community health and education Task Force on vulnerability assessment at individual, family, and community levels.
• Support Community Task Forces in the identification of programme participants for health and education support.
• Reviewing and submitting to the Admissions Committee the programme participants received from Community Task Forces.
• Facilitate active participation of children in all Family Strengthening Programme health and education programmes.
• Facilitate the formation and functioning of community study groups.
• Facilitate the identification and training of community facilitators in Family Development Planning.
Programme Planning and Budgeting
• Lead the budgeting on Family Strengthening programme health and education components.
• 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.
• Support the development of an appropriate action plan to meet the health and education needs of each child, household, and community.
• Facilitate the identification of opportunities and mobilization of local resources for the health and education action plan to meet the needs of each child, household, and community.
• Support the preparation of individualized health and education support in the family development plans.
• Support the preparation of community development plans in relation to health and education.
• Support the programme coordinator in the consolidation of Family Development Plans and preparation of budgets relevant to the attainment of programme’s goal in health and education.
• Facilitate development of emergency preparedness plans related to education and health against potential disruption by disaster.
Facilitate Access to Education Services
• Undertake monitoring visits to school, tertiary, and vocational education institutions to assess performance of children and young people supported by the program.
• Analyse schools’ challenges and prioritise support which will have the greatest impact on the children and young people.
• Facilitate the development of school support projects for quality improvement.
• Undertake regular assessment of the class performance of supported children and young people.
• Organise and facilitate motivational talks for school-going children and their caregivers.
• Organise career guidance for school-going children.
• Undertake regular school visits to ascertain the learning environment for quality access to education.
• Promote girl child and women access to education services.
• In liaison with community-based partners, facilitate the identification of young people for Vocational Training Centre (VTC) enrolment.
• Facilitate the undertaking of training needs assessments of identified young people to ascertain their trade placement.
• Facilitate young people enrolment in vocational training centres.
• Organise training meetings for caregivers in pre-school and after-school child support.
• Facilitate and organise capacity building of education service providers.
• Lobby government scholarship for children and young people on the programme.
• Identify caregivers in need of adult literacy.
• Facilitate programme participants/caregivers’ access to adult literacy services.
Facilitate Children’s, Youth & Caregiver Access to Health Services
• Identify children and caregivers in need of health support.
• Facilitate programme participant access to child immunisation.
• Organise regular nutritional assessment of children on the programme.
• Organise nutritional training sessions for caregivers and children on the programme.
• Organise medical and supplementary nutritional support for malnourished children.
• Facilitate home-based care support for programme participants in need.
• Facilitate children and caregivers’ access to ART/TB treatment services.
• Facilitate formation of child and adult support groups for children and caregivers living with terminally disease.
• Organise training of community home-based care support groups.
• Facilitate the equipment of the Community Home-Based Care groups with essential first aid kits.
• Organise capacity building CHBC support to support groups for self-reliance.
• Link Community Home-Based Care groups to other support networks and institutions.
• Lobby government medical schemes for children, young people, and caregivers on the programme.
• Organise psychosocial counselling to children and caregivers in need.
• Organise HIV and AIDS awareness creation campaigns among the supported households and programme catchment communities.
Networking and Partnerships
• Facilitate stakeholder analysis within the programme, maintaining and updating stakeholders’ profiles.
• Collaborate with community development structures, other NGOs, and government departments for effective health and education service delivery to programme participants.
• Support functional and functional sustainability of community-based education and health networks on OVC support and other relevant development initiatives.
• Represent the FSP on education and health-related forums.
• Identifying opportunities for OVC health and education support partnerships within the programme area.
Monitoring and Evaluation
• Facilitate participatory monitoring and evaluation of the health and education programme interventions.
• Facilitate regular health and education related data collection through appropriate monitoring tools on programme interventions.
• Carry out regular home visits to families on the programme and write home visit reports.
• Carry out regular visits to CBPs, family support groups, and other partners in the respective community for timely and relevant health and education programme support.
Reporting and Documentation
• Prepare and submit timely accurate, compliant, and quality progress reports on programme Education & health-related interventions.
• Ensuring that relevant community development structures have documented programme processes.
• Ensuring that the database and records on health and education programme interventions are maintained and updated timely.
Resource Management
• Adherence to internal controls.


Education Requirement: No Requirements

Job Experience: No Requirements

Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months:

Level of Education:

Job application procedure
Interested in applying for this job? Click here to submit your application now.

Closing date for receipt of applications is 7 February 2025
You can email your application letter and CV only to jobs@sos-zambia.org. Please DO NOT email academic and professional certificates as they will only be required during the interviews to the applicants who will be responded to.
SOS Children’s Villages Zambia is an equal opportunity employer.

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