We’re looking for an experienced and creative communications officer to join our team in East Africa. The successful candidate will work with the outreach and global communications teams to capture, document and share BV’s conservation programme and learning through a range of outputs including news stories, blog posts, content for social media, reports, documentary photography and materials for media consumption.
The role of the Regional Communications Officer – East Africa provides a broad range of support to promote the effective communication of our programmes across our Outreach partnerships in East Africa. Reporting to the Communications Manager, this full-time role is based in Tanzania, Kenya or Mozambique with occasional regional and international travel.
This role requires outstanding written communication, editing skills and the ability to adapt the message to a range of audiences. You will be motivated by telling the story of East Africa’s small-scale fishers through their own words and experiences, using digital channels, high quality imagery and data visualisation tools to bring impact to life. You will work to showcase the efforts of BV’s partner organisations and the fisher communities they serve, while communicating the enabling role the organisation plays in catalysing community-led marine management across East Africa.
Candidate profile
The candidate needs to be a writer, a storyteller, a documenter, passionate about the power of stories to bridge gaps, build emotions and lead to positive actions and impact. The individual will need to be familiar with the marine conservation sector and be well connected to regional media contacts to help amplify storytelling.
The candidate will demonstrate exceptional written and digital communications as well as a proven track record of project delivery and management. Ideally, you will have experience of developing communications for, or reporting on, community-based conservation or small-scale fisheries initiatives in the region.
The Regional Communications Officer – East Africa will be passionate about driving community-led conservation forward by working alongside partners and colleagues to upskill them: training of staff and partners, networks and communities on communications including writing, storytelling and design.
This will include showing empathy, humility and sensitivity to community, partner and government interests in all communications, and writing in a style that exemplifies Blue Ventures’ core values.
This role entails working as part of a fast-paced, interdisciplinary and international organisation, with excellent opportunities for creative thinking and professional development. You will be able to demonstrate experience of working independently and solving complex problems in challenging situations.
Responsibilities
● Working closely with colleagues and partners you will coordinate, draft and edit content for a range of channels including blogs, social media, news stories, website updates and reports to communicate BV’s conservation journey with partners and small-scale fishers
● Create and publish original written content in line with BV’s strategic priorities, raising the profile of community-led marine conservation and small-scale fisheries management efforts
in East Africa, highlighting the work of our team and partner organisations
● Track communication opportunities across our team’s work, engaging proactively with colleagues and partners across sites to document learning and share stories
● Contribute to collaborative systems for scheduling communications with our international communications team, promoting and showcasing the work of Blue Ventures and our partners in East Africa
● Contribute to the development and delivery of social media strategies and campaigns, providing regular short updates for our channels capturing updates from our team and partners and sharing the latest in marine conservation, small-scale fisheries and BV’s rights based approach to conservation, celebrating partner and network news and events
● Represent Blue Ventures at events, meetings, conferences or workshops as necessary
● Support our partners with communications outputs and training
● Undertake the collection of first person narratives from partners and community members to bring BV’s conservation mission to life
● Have the ability to work with people from a range backgrounds to enable them to share their own narratives through communications materials
● Contribute actively to our internal communications raising the voice and profile of our work in East Africa within our global team
● Train partners and colleagues in communications skills including storytelling on an ongoing basis, as required
Skills and experience
Required
● Minimum of two years of experience in a communications role
● Fluency in written and spoken English and Kiswahili
● Proven experience in journalism, fisheries, or environmental conservation programmes
● Demonstrable skills in communication of complex information to a diverse range of stakeholders
● Demonstrable experience in producing and managing content for online blogs, websites and social media platforms
● Competence in documentary photography
● Understanding of participatory approaches to communications in a development context including ethical considerations
● Excellent time management and organisational skills
● Confident, strong interpersonal skills and ability to relate to and work effectively with individuals from a wide range of backgrounds and cultures, at all levels – Capacity to undertake research and development work independently as well as part of an international team, collaborating remotely across time-zones
Desired
● Journalism or development communications background
● Experience and willingness with travel to remote locations
● Competency in additional language(s): Portuguese
● Knowledge of collaborative working with Google Docs and the GSuite setup
