Radio Expansion Programme Manager NGO Jobs – Lively Minds

Job Title: Radio Expansion Programme Manager

Organisation: Lively Minds

Duty Station: Jinja, Uganda with frequent travel to rural areas in Uganda (as well as to Ghana and other countries where required)

Reports to: Chief Executive Officer

Compensation: GBP £38,000 – 42,000 depending on experience

Contract: 2 year contract with opportunity to renew subject to the result of the evaluation

About US:

Our mission is to get preschool children in rural Africa school-ready. At present over 250 million children worldwide fail to receive the education and care they need in their early years which means they are less likely to do well in school, find gainful employment, and are at greater risk of early marriage, early parenthood and even criminality. Current approaches to solving this crisis are not proving effective or scalable in lower middle income countries. That’s where Lively Minds comes in. We have developed an award-winning Early Childhood Development programme that has been proven through randomised control trial to improve cognitive and socio-emotional skills and reduce malnutrition for pre-schoolers in hard-to-reach communities school-ready, so they have a greater chance of succeeding in school and in life. The programme provides marginalised Mothers with a parenting course that empowers them to run educational Play Schemes for pre-schoolers and to provide better home-based care, using cheap local resources. Government of Ghana have now adopted the programme and we have a ground-breaking partnership with them to support them to institutionalise it, fund it and to scale it to 60 education districts, reaching over 4000 communities and 1million children. We have also scaled the programme through all rural communities in Mayuge District in Uganda.

In addition to our regular programme, we have leveraged the opportunity to reach an even larger number of rural parents through radio. During COVID, we developed a radio programme for rural parents, Lively Minds Together (LMT), which has now become a permanent fixture. LMT adapts our proven and tested content from the regular programme into very interactive and practical episodes for rural parents that supports them to provide learning and care at home. Each week the following is broadcast in local language:

A 20 min parenting episode, that shares simple cost-free ways for parents and caregivers to support family health, wellbeing, and children’s development. Example episode topics include handwashing, nutrition, malaria prevention, wellbeing.
A 20 minute play episode: teaching parents simple, fun, cost-free games and activities that use available household materials to support development and school¬readiness in young children.
Live phone-ins after each episode: giving parents the opportunity to share experiences and ask questions.

The main objectives are to:

Change the mindsets of rural parents so that they understand the critical role they play and are confident in providing ECCE for their children using the resources they have
Give rural parents the information and skills they need to provide ECCE at home

The programme currently airs in Uganda on 1 radio station, 1 local language and in Ghana on 18 radio stations, 16 local languages. The show’s reach is estimated to be around 2 million listeners.

A study conducted by Farm Radio International (FRI) in Ghana shows that rural parents are listening to the show, feeling more confident and putting what they are learning into practice:

Of parents who listen to the radio, approximately 80% listened to the LMT program
Overall, nearly 90% of surveyed listeners noted that the program helped parents and caregivers learn parenting skills and skills related to teaching children at home
Most LMT program listeners (76.5%) reported that they had started using new games or activities with their children after listening to the radio program
5% of listeners agreed that the LMT program had influenced their decision to start using new practices at home related to early childhood care and education

The programme is also cheap to deliver and highly scalable. We believe LMT genuinely has the potential to play a transformative role in ending the global ECD crisis. We plan to conduct a rigorous evaluation of the programme to prove impact and are exploring how to expand the programme in Uganda and elsewhere given positive results.

We’re a lively ambitious organisation, 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 innovation, responsibility, growth, collaboration, creativity and fun. We want all staff to be happy, fulfilled and to feel appreciated and valued in their work.

To find out more about our programme, please visit www.livelyminds.org.

About the role

We believe that the Lively Minds Together (LMT) Radio Programme could offer a cheap, impactful and highly scalable solution to the ECD crisis:

It is low cost and low resource, requiring just a small team to run it
Easy to set-up quickly and to implement
Has the potential to reach millions of rural parents as radio is the largest and most trusted form of mass media in most rural areas of Africa (On average, over 50% of rural households own a radio & on average, rural listenership of radio is over 50% (varies by country))

However, we first want to prove and learn more about the impact through a rigorous evaluation. To do this, we plan to optimise the programme (maximising impact while reducing cost/effort), pilot in a new district in Uganda (to be determined) and conduct a

randomised control trial (RCT). Through an RCT we hope to answer the following key questions:

Does LMT improve upon parenting knowledge, mindset and practice? And how?
Is LMT scalable and worth scaling (I.e. do the outcomes justify the cost)?
What are ways we can further improve on listenership and impact?

If proven impactful, we plan to scale the radio programme in Uganda and elsewhere.

We are seeking a passionate, creative and versatile Radio Expansion Programme Manager who will be hands on in managing all aspects of the LMT programme optimisation, testing, pilot and RCT to high quality standards and in developing a well analysed strategy to expand to other locations in Uganda and elsewhere. This is a very exciting opportunity to get involved in all aspects of designing, implementing, testing and potentially scaling a radio programme that could make a real difference in the lives of millions of rural parents and their children.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

We have already started developing our radio pilot and future expansion plan and working with a potential external evaluation team to design the RCT. You will help take this work to the next level and will be responsible for delivering it. In particular you will:

Lead the optimisation and implementation of the radio pilot

Lead a team to optimise radio pilot implementation (to ensure it is low cost, low effort, high impact) based on feedback from UX workshops and listener surveys
Work with the M&E and Content teams to develop high quality radio content based on feedback from UX workshops and listener surveys
Lead a local team to implement the radio pilot
Take the lead in contracting and management of radio station partner(s)
Work with the Uganda Country Director to manage team implementation of the radio pilot and ensure it is within budget and to quality standards.
Work with M&E team to ensure we are able to identify risks/issues proactively.
Resolve risks/issues in timely manner.
Work with M&E team to ensure ongoing learning is captured from the radio programme and improvements are made where relevant, including organising and delivering listener focus groups and working with content team to update content

Manage the External Evaluators and ensure the RCT meets our goals/requirements

Work with M&E team and the external evaluators to co-design the evaluation in a way that aligns with programme and organisational goals
Lead fundraising efforts for the RCT, including identifying and liaising with potential funders, working with the Finance team and external evaluators to develop a budget, and drafting and carrying forward funding proposals
Ensure the external evaluators deliver the evaluation successfully on the ground – ensuring coordination with Uganda implementation team, managing risks and issues proactively, providing frequent updates
Collaborate with the Advocacy team and external evaluators to identify key stakeholders and garner their interest in the programme and the RCT results throughout the study and when disseminating final results

Develop a detailed strategy/plan to scale the radio programme

Develop a costed plan for expansion, including refining implementation model based on RCT results, identifying potential locations for expansion, staffing, how to ramp up to scale
Identify potential future partners and funders for expansion and work with the Finance/Fundraising Team to develop and communicate case for support
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.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

Essential Experience and Skills

Experience designing, managing and quality assuring programmes
Experience in managing or working closely with external evaluators
Familiar with M&E and user experience testing
Experience working in Uganda or sub Saharan Africa with rural communities
At least three years of experience as a Programme Manager (or equivalent role)
Project management qualification

Desirable Experience and Skills

Experience working with RCTs
Experience working with radio/media programmes
Experience scaling a programme
Advocacy
Fundraising
You will be expected to perform against the Lively Minds Competencies.

To succeed in this role, you will be

You are an entrepreneurial leader. You can work with minimal support and resources, and find creative opportunities to achieve goals and seek out new opportunities
You are highly analytical project manager. You will need to be detail-oriented – staying aware of opportunities and anticipating risks. You will need to creatively and proactively mitigate risks and solve challenges as they arise.
You are able to deliver high quality work at pace and recover quickly from set-backs
You are willing to be hands-on. You will be working closely with the Uganda
Implementation Team to deliver the radio and will need to closely understand all aspects of the radio programme from the ground up. You will also need to get involved on the ground with the external evaluation team and ensure the evaluation quality is high.
You are an excellent communicator. Able to communicate research findings to stakeholders in a clear and compelling manner.
Be comfortable working in a start-up environment. We have developed innovative approaches to our programme and to our internal systems. We work as a multi-disciplinary team and are non-hierarchical and highly participatory. You will need to be adaptive, agile and open to new ideas, processes and ways of working.

How to Apply:

If this sounds like you, please complete an application form and send it together with your CV to jobs@livelyminds.org

NB:

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 police checks.
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.

Deadline: Monday 26th June 2023 by 11:59pm EAT