International Consultancy to Strengthen Communication within the Child Protection Programme in Abkhazia

Contract

This is a Consultancy contract. More about Consultancy contracts.

Deadline- 17 March, 6 PM Georgian time

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, education

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

UNICEF works in Abkhazia to improve the access of vulnerable children to basic services including health, nutrition, education, child protection and water, sanitation and hygiene services.

The context in Abkhazia is challenging and characterized by a traditional society which has been affected by conflict and which suffers from a lack of social services and child protection mechanisms. Also, due to limited access of local stakeholders and community to international professional networks and development processes, there is a lack of awareness on internationally recognized approaches to child protection. Therefore, UNICEF is focused on strengthening various components of the child protection services. UNICEF works in close cooperation with local partners, including social workers and other key actors to promote child rights and child protection mechanisms.

In the last several years, child protection topics received greater visibility in Abkhazia. Various child issues are increasingly discussed publicly by local civil society and journalists. At the same time, local civil society and journalists require more knowledge on how to cover child stories or develop analytics and articles based on valid and internationally recognized approaches. Both journalists and civil society members need capacity building on sensitive language when dealing with stories of vulnerable children, children with disabilities and various child protection cases.

Scope of Work:

UNICEF seeks to engage an international consultant to support strengthening the communication component within the SIDA-funded project “Developing, Strengthening and Expanding Sustainable Basic Social Services for Children in Abkhazia”. Work will include the provision of training for journalists and civil society representatives.

Strat date: 15 March- 30 June 2023 ( 12 working days).

Location: Home -based

Work Assignment Overview

Tasks/Milestone:

Deliverables/Outputs:

Timeline:

Training for journalists on effective child-friendly communication in child protection. The main objectives of the training will be building journalists’ skills on how to identify the news/issues about children and follow ethical standards of reporting on children.

An interactive training (approx. 24 hours) will be prepared and held for a group of journalists. The training should include a presentation of best practices and examples of effective communication on child well-being and protection issues with the focus on ethics, confidentiality and other core child protection principles being aware of the local context and sensitivities.

The training is intended to strengthen journalists’ understanding of children’s rights and how to keep them on the news agenda, putting efforts to

protect those rights and challenging those who fail to meet their commitments to children. Some of the areas that should be covered during the training would be considering the ‘children’s angle’ in more conventional news coverage as well as the following topics: children with disabilities, children and discrimination, children and the family, children and the media, children and crime etc.

Quality training for journalists; report on the training with findings and recommending for further actions.

15 March – 31 June 2023

Training for civil society will focus on building CSO skills on media relations and communication. This will help them to pitch children’s issues to media and to learn what are basic media relation skills. In addition, the training will include a presentation of internationally applied child-friendly terms and examples of effective communication on child well-being and protection issues with the focus on ethics, confidentiality and other core child protection principles.

Quality training for civil society members.

Report on the training with findings and recommending for further actions.

15 March – 31 June 2023

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:

• Advanced university degree in Communications, Journalism, Public Relations or a related field;

• At least 5 (five) years of practical experience in communication planning, including work for UNICEF; proven track record of previous communication achievements;

• Good understanding of UNICEF’s approaches to communication;

• Proven experience in developing and delivering trainings/workshops;

• Ability to communicate ideas in a manner conducive to their practical application;

• Working knowledge of English; ability to deliver training in Russian will be an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.