District Liaise Officer NGO Jobs – Lively Minds
Job Title: District Liaise Officer
Organisation: Lively Minds
Duty Station: Jinja, Uganda with field travel
Reports to: Programme Coordinator
Hours: Full-time, 9:30am-5:30pm Monday to Friday, with one hour for lunch.
Compensation: 13,030,193 UGX gross per annum (1,085, 849 UGX gross per month). rising to 14,984, 722 UGX, subject to performance. Then, any subsequent pay progression is based on performance.
Contract: A fixed-term contract of two years with a possibility of contractual renewal depending on how our Uganda scale up programme is progressing.
About US:
Lively Minds is an award-winning NGO, working to get pre-schoolers in rural Ghana & Uganda school-ready. Since 2008, we have developed an innovative, behaviour-change programme that empowers marginalized, poorly-educated mothers to run educational ‘Play Schemes’ for pre-schoolers and to provide better home-based care, using local resources. The Lively Minds programme aims to improve school-readiness of rural kindergarten children, by training parents to provide practical, cost-free learning and developmental activities in the kindergarten
and at home.
These are exciting times for Lively Minds. Our programme in Uganda is in a test and position-for-scale stage with the long-term aim of national roll-out. Our long-term goal is for the programme to be adopted in several countries in the developing world, so that it can have a large impact in tackling the global early childhood development crisis.
We’re an ambitious team, determined to have a major positive impact on the world. We work hard, at a fast pace, in a challenging environment. We expect everyone to give their best to achieve the best possible results. Our work is demanding but provides plenty of opportunity for learning, growth and creativity. We want all staff to be happy, fulfilled and to feel appreciated and valued in their work.
Job Summary: The Liaise Officers are part of a busy District Implementation team, responsible for embedding and sustaining the programme. Each Liaise Officer is responsible for providing training, technical support and capacity building to the sub county. The Liaise Officer has a high level of responsibility within each Sub County. He/she manages the programmes’ relationship with a number of different sub county stakeholders and represents Lively Minds. The officer will work closely with Mayuge District stakeholders to help problem-solve any issues and risks, including quality and compliance issues such as absence and lateness. The Officer will also produce reports as well as analysing financial reports submitted by the sub county. The Liaise Officer will work directly with the Lively Minds Coordinators, to support them to quickly resolve issues and escalate to the sub county chief where necessary.
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
Responsible for the success of the “embed” phase
- Support capacity building through training, coaching and mentoring others.
- Monitor and report on “set-up” activity compliance by sub county team, identifying issues and proactively problem solving.
- Build sub county capacity and ownership during ongoing activities through trainings and field/online/mobile coaching/mentorship sessions.
- Supervise quality of ongoing activities delivered by sub county, including “Top-up” workshops, target period meetings, monitoring, termly reporting, radio programme etc. – proactively identifying challenges and coaching sub county to solve challenges.
- Supervise and report on sub county compliance, analysing data and financial reports/accountability, identifying risks, problem solving and escalating where appropriate.
- Share lessons learned with wider stakeholders and contribute to continuous improvement programmes for areas such as District support packages.
Quality assurance, reporting and compliance
- Monitor training of mothers and support Set-up team where required.
- Monitor on-going quality of Play Schemes, Parenting Workshops and Radio Programme, identifying risks and bright spots and proactively problem solving.
- Provide timely and accurate reports of Play Schemes, Parenting Workshops and Radio Programme quality.
- Make and submit activity, and monthly narrative reports highliting key issues including but not limited to successes, challenges, action points, success stories, and lessons learned to the Programme Coordinator on a timely manner.
- To report any risks or successes that may impact on the programme quality and develop and share plans to meet those needs/opportunities, communicating and cooperating with fellow team members and stakeholders.
- Assess budget requests and analyse financial expenditure.
You may be assigned any other responsibility in agreement with your line manager, in contribution to Lively Minds work and in recognition of your experience and skills. It is therefore expected for staff to be flexible and willing to contribute to the work of the wider team.
About you
To succeed in this role, you must be:
- Proactive, energetic and highly motivated.
- Analytical with a keen eye for detail.
- Confident in training, coaching and motivating others to solve problems.
- Able to manage a diverse group of stakeholders, including senior government stakeholders such as sub county chief.
- Able to monitor and analyse budgets.
- Technically proficient and able to learn to use new tools quickly.
- Good strategic problem solver who can identify sustainable solutions.
Qualifications, Skills and Experience:
Essential experience and skills
- Minimum qualification: Degree in early childhood or a relevant subject.
- Three to five years of relevant work experience.
- Good financial acumen with monitoring and reporting on finances/budgets.
- Ability to coach and deliver training to government officials and others.
- Ability to work closely with a range of senior Regional and District stakeholders.
- Understanding of Monitoring and Evaluation practises with strong data analysis abilities.
- Analytical with strong problem solving abilities and ability to make decisions in a timley and robust manner.
- Excellent planning and organisational skills.
- Very good communication, negotiation and influencing skills with good basic report writing skills.
- Comfortable with frequent travel and overnight stays.
- Technically literate – Good understanding of MS word, Powerpoint and Excel. Able to adapt to and learn new tech systems easily.
- Fluent in Ugandan Lusoga (written and spoken)
Desirable experience and skills
- Experience of working with education stakeholders.
- Experience of working for an NGO.
- Fluency in one or more of the following languages will be an added advantage: Luganda or Kiswahili
Benefits: Benefits include basic medical insurance for the employee only. Lively Minds is passionate about learning and development. We offer all staff access to internal learning opportunities. We are unable to offer any financial support for relocation. However, new staff may be permitted to stay on a short-term basis in shared office accommodation if there is a room available in the office. These rooms will be allocated on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Please note
- Applications submitted after the deadline will not be considered.
- CVs and cover letters will not be considered.
- Due to resource constraints, we apologise, but we will only respond to shortlisted candidates.
- Lively Minds operates a strict Child & Vulnerable Adult Protection Policy, and we therefore check suitability of successful candidates though background checks consisting of references and a police check.
- Lively Minds is fully committed to equity, diversity and inclusion. We want this to be reflected in the diversity of the people who work for us and we welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and identities. Women are strongly encouraged to apply – we promote family values and offer paid maternity and paternity leave. Where possible, special considerations are also made in district allocation to support staff with childcare commitments.
How to Apply:
If this sounds like you, please complete an application form and send it to jobs@livelyminds.org by 11:59pm EAT on Sunday 5th June 2022.
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, interested applicants are encouraged to apply early. Due to the urgent nature of this recruitment we would be keen to recruit a suitable candidate that is available to start immediately.
Deadline: 5th June 2022
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