Accountable to CCP, the Community Engagement and Capacity Strengthening Officers will coordinate and lead the implementation of grassroots activities aimed at nurturing support for youth leadership and participation in community service and work among community members and structure.

Duties & Responsibilities

Community Engagement 

• Establish strong connections between community structures, governments, and other partners to maintain a strong community role in decision-making processes.

• Ensure that community engagement approaches are locally relevant, gender, age and culturally appropriate and in languages and formats that are understood by all members of the community 

• Identify community members who can work as focal points for information dissemination 

• Identify community priorities, resources, needs, and solutions, and ensure that they are integrated into project and response plans.

• Mobilize community-based groups, community influencers and community leaders

• Provide weekly field reports, capturing activities progress, lessons learned as well as the general situation and community updates and needs; 

• Collaborate with relevant teams to ensure documentation of all community mobilization and M&E activities. 

• Provide technical and operational support to overall Community Engagement activities 

• Ensure community engagement strategies and implementation plans are evidence-based, coordinated, and well executed 

• Ensure that community involvement strategies are implemented collaboratively and with the proper monitoring and evaluation tools and methods by working with partners.

• Provides technical assistance and data generation for the project

• Coordinate mechanism for community service developed at the local level 

• Assists with donor/sponsor database management/reporting

• Develop processes that ensure the involvement of communities in key elements of the design and management of activities.

• Perform any other incident-specific related duties, as required by the supervisor

Capacity Building

• Clearly determine which activities the community can undertake itself and activities for which the support of service providers will be required.

• Oversees the logistics for all events, workshops, and other activities, including organizing and promoting them. 

• creates guidelines for capacity improvement and a related program using the best available techniques and approaches 

• Leads training activities for the project, its implementing partners, and local stakeholders. 

• Builds target audiences by thorough planning, communication that considers the audience, and prompt follow-up.

• Participate in technical work on strategies, toolkits, communication materials, and other aspects of building community capacity.

• Participate in the drafting and implementation of approved work plans 

• In conjunction with the project technical leads, keep an eye on project activities and stakeholder activities, and record success stories to effectively document lessons learned from the projects. 

• Assist in planning and facilitation of various training in consultation with program staff. 

• Look for ways to increase community involvement in different initiatives and make suggestions for the greatest experiences. 

• Assist in building the capacity of the community (in line with the community’s action plan)

• Plan realistic timeframes for community engagement activities to accommodate the need to build or expand required capacity. 

• Provide training and capacity development that is based on realistic assessments of existing strengths and resource gaps.

• Build on local social, educational and institutional structures as platforms for learning and capacity. 

• Build local capacity to interpret and use information and data.

• Design capacity-building that strengthens community resilience and the ability to withstand threats or shocks, and adapt to new livelihood options, in ways that preserve integrity and that do not deepen vulnerabilit

Report to: Cluster Manager

Place of work:  Amhara region based in Bahirdar and Oromia region based in Jimma 

Required no. 1 (one) for each place 

Duration of Employment: 1 year with possible extension 

Job Requirements

Required Qualifications & Skills 

• Master's degree with 5+ years of relevant experience or Bachelor's degree with 7 years of relevant experience; or equivalent combination of education and experience in management, development studies, sociology, anthropology, international development, or other related disciplines. 

• Experience working on capacity-building and community engagement programs. 

• Professional experience developing facilitation plans, workshop and training materials, and leading training/capacity-building sessions. 

• Professional working proficiency in English (verbal and written). 

• Professional proficiency (verbal and written) in Amharic and other Ethiopian languages 

• Clarity of thought and effective communication. 

• Listening and problem-solving skills.

• Independently follows multi-step implementation plans. 

• Ability to attend conference calls and virtual meetings with Clients and other stakeholders outside of regular business hours.

How to Apply

Candidates with the required Knowledge, skills proven experiences are invited to submit an application letter with a resume via e-mail, to ccpeth-admin@jh.edu no later than May 4, 2023.  

Note: Use “Community Engagement & Capacity Strengthening” as the subject line of your e-mail