Women’s Protection and Empowerment (WPE) Officer

Job Description

WPE Officer

Duty station: Kharkiv Oblast

Key working relationships:

- Position Reports to: WPE Manager, Ukraine - Position directly supervises: TBD - Internal collaborations within IRC: Child Protection team; Protection team; Economic Recovery and Development team; Health team. - External collaborations to IRC: GBV actors, organizations and agencies

Job Overview/Summary:

After almost a year of conflict, the operating environment in Ukraine is characterized by a protracted complex emergency and overlapping acute emergencies linked to armed conflict, displacement, restricted access to essential services, food insecurity, and extreme weather conditions. The IRC’s programs respond to both chronic and acute emergency needs. As part of an effort to swiftly respond to Ukraine’s changing context, IRC Ukraine is planning to establish multisectoral Rapid Response Teams, able to deliver a variety of technical programs (NFI, cash, health and protection) in a mobile, efficient manner to reach people affected by the conflict as soon as possible.

The Women’s Protection and Empowerment (WPE) Officer will oversee GBV prevention, community engagement and risk reduction activities and requires extensive travel within the Oblast. These activities will focus on targeting communities on issues relating to GBV to using a variety of context appropriate methods . Specifically, the WPE Officer will be responsible for:

1) Program implementation and quality: Proactively creating and developing GBV mitigation and community engagement activities, ensuring that best practice, WPE guidelines and approaches are being followed, specifically:

- Train and support other IRC sectors and agencies in risk reduction and the identification of concrete actions they can take to increase women and girls’ participation and mitigate risks they face in the community.

- Seek technical guidance and support from the WPE Senior Officer on activity development, implementation and available resources

- Reinforce adherence to the GBV guiding principles throughout all WPE activities, and ensuring confidentiality of survivors, informed consent and respect for their wishes and decisions.

2) Community engagement: Build and maintain relationships the communities, including local leaders, groups and organizations and actors, specifically:

- Provide training to organizations and actors on GBV and risk reduction

- Develop messages on the types of services available to survivors of GBV, where these services are available, how communities can support survivors to access services, and the consequences of GBV and the benefits of seeking care and support, using a variety of context-appropriate methods

- Conduct a variety of community outreach and mobilization activities aimed at violence prevention and building supportive and protective communities towards women and girls;

- Support distributions of risk reduction and dignity kits items and follow-on monitoring

- Work with the WPE team to ensure the response to the evolving needs of women and girls and their communities

- Identify concerns related to and support adherence to GBV referral protocols and GBV guiding principles, and bring these concerns to the WPE Manager

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3) Administration and reporting: Lead WPE prevention program reporting (through direct implementation and support partners), including:

- Prepare and submit weekly activity work plans in a timely manner to agreed-upon deadlines

- Prepare brief daily report on activities conducted and submit weekly to the WPE Senior Officer

- Complete all relevant tools for activities conducted

- Contribute to monthly reports, including information on community engagement activities, community consultations, and progress made

4) Coordination & representation: Engage with organizations and actors on identifying concerns and strategies that reduce risks faced by women and girls, collaboratively develop actions to address concerns. And where requested by supervisor, actively take part in coordination meetings relevant to WPE.

5) Other: Support program quality by ensuring all activities are carried out in accordance with IRC policies and delivering duties as assigned by the supervisor to enable and develop IRC programs

Requirements:

- Language: Ukrainian required; English

- Master of Arts or Science in social work, psychology, human rights.

- Demonstrated experience with community work, community mobilization and engagement, and working with women and girls affected by conflict/crisis

- Ability to keep records and write simple and basic reports of activities would be an added advantage

- Comfortable speaking about sensitive topics in an honest, professional, and thoughtful manner

- Demonstrated understanding of and ability to maintain confidentiality and respect for clients/beneficiaries

- Positive and professional attitude, including ability to lead and work well in a team setting

- High degree of flexibility and strong ability to organize work, meet deadlines, maintain composure, prioritize work under pressure, coordinate multiple tasks and maintain attention to detail

- Computer literate, including Microsoft Word and Excel

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Qualifications