Room to Read Hiring For Program Associate, Girls’ Education Program at Rajasthan Full Time

The Girls’ Education Program (GEP) Associate spends the majority of his or her time providing guidance and capacitating the Social Mobilizers (SMs) and assists the Program Officer in carrying out all activities of the GEP. The position will be field based and will involve frequent travel to the areas of work. The work will entail providing guidance to social mobilizers, supporting and sometimes facilitating SM trainings, working with SMs regularly, as defined in the guiding documents to ensure that they are effective in their roles in working with girls. They will also be responsible for strengthening linkages with like- minded organizations, liasioning with block/district level officials, regular program and financial tracking, collecting program data and entering it into RtR’s database and determining and delivering material support for girls participating in the program. The Program Associate will be required to be in field visit around 60% of time. The Program Associate reports to the Program Officer and manages a set of SMs and a program administrative assistant.

Duties & Responsibilities:
Program Implementation and Training (Manage Social Mobilizers)

Managing, guiding and enhancing capacity of a team of Social Mobilizers.

Lead all weekly and monthly review and feedback sessions with direct reports

Guiding SMs in planning and facilitating Room to Read’s Girls’ Education Program activities. Support may include guiding an SM set her schedule of lifeskill session with girls, observing a session and providing feedback to the SM, or other activities needed to capacitate SMs to succeed in their core responsibilities.

Capacitate and guide SMs to mentor girls both in person and through remote mentoring. This may include providing ideas for group discussion topics and coaching the SMs on how to handle difficult topics or ideate with them to identify opportunities for learning visits and engaging resource speakers.

Lead all learning/exposure visits of girls with support from SMs.

Guiding the SM in identifying and supporting girls at risk of dropping or failing out of school using Room to Read’s risk and response protocol.

Conduct regular review meetings (on-line and in-person) with SMs (as per protocol) to discuss and identify solutions to challenges that SMs are facing in program implementation and in working with the girls and communities.

Develop yearly goal and conduct annual performance review of SMs

Lead all the Social Mobilizers’ trainings under the guidance of PO. This may include planning, developing and facilitating and/or co-facilitating training sessions both in person and online.

Participate in regular trainings and meetings with Room to Read staff conducted by the Country Office.

Ensure feedback is given to specific Social Mobilizers or Program Admin Assistant and recorded in written regularly.

Develop a school profile for each of the enhanced schools and regularly updated

Identify and document case studies at least 4 in a year and/or as required.

Participate in donor field visits and provide information to donors about Room to Read’s Girls’ Education Program as needed.

Facilitate in developing one state level newsletter with girls.

Family, school and community engagement

Guide and hand hold Social Mobilizers to conduct parents’ workshop and parents meeting as planned

Identify local needs of the community and explore and ideate with SMs and POs regarding probable parents meeting topics.

Regular meeting and providing program update to school staff including head teachers and creating playing the role of a catalyst promoting the school to think of Girls’ education and solutions to problems affecting girls in the catchment area of the school with support from SM.

Lead 4 school engagement meeting each year (as per module)

Develop and update list of scholarship schemes and entitlements with parents in an accessible format

Guide SMs to conduct all meeting with community level stakeholders such as SMC, VLCPC etc.

Maintain a database of all the schemes and benefits our girl’s scholars are getting and facilitating all girls to get the same

Lead all community campaigns in respective schools with support from SMs.

Material Support

Lead the targeted material support need assessment process

Cross verification of the girls proposed for material support

Collate data and share further to PO

Will be responsible for the programmatic part of the procurement process such as raising PR for approval of PO and State Manager, inter-departmental follow ups and oversee distribution.

Liaising, networking and building linkages at the field, block and district level

Networking and liaison with all block and/ or district level government departments and officials

Networking and liaison with all village/ ward level stakeholders Plan and organize trainings and meetings for government officials (block and district level)

Building linkages with like-minded organisations for referral services for girls after discussing with Program Officer

Create linkages with school management committees, child protection committees and any other as required to create safety nets for girls and conduct regular meetings with them

Develop a linkage with school authorities and communities to ensure support to the program – liase for a GEP room dedicated for life skills classes and mentoring, adequate periods are allocated during school timings for sessions and manage any other operational challenges.

Exploring and ensuring girls have access to State level scholarships and can also avail citizenship entitlements

Support Program Officer for creating visibility of GEP in District and State level

Ensuring Quality program at the field level

Conduct discussions on Program Quality with SM during review meeting jointly with PO

Share learnings from INCO level review meetings

Understand and work on factors that may impede quality and fidelity on the field

Tracks to see if quality standards are being met and provide updates to PO

Use LS observations form and basis this provides feedback to Social Mobilizers and develop coaching plan for each SM.

Analyzes the availability of materials for LS session, mentoring and material support and provides corrective feedback to program Assistant as needed

Innovate and ideate on various ways to reach out to girls, school and community remotely.

Planning, Reporting and Documentation

Ensure the SM is monitoring and keeping records of girls including attendance, academic performance and other program activities as required per the program design.

Ensure the SM is planning, documenting, and reporting on school and home visits and parent meetings and workshops.

Manage program expenses and complete financial reporting as per RTRs accounting and finance policies. Direct and guide Program Admin Assistant appropriately to ensure data as required by HR and Accounts is provided in time

Document best practices, case studies, photos and lessons learned and share with the GEP Team.

Track drop outs of girls and understand reasons, flag issues of concern to PO

Annual planning and budgeting

Participate in the annual planning and budgeting process

Ensure budget forecasting for the month and submit bills timely with support of the program Assistant (Admin)

Any other

Assist Program Officer for new geographies and school selection

Oversee all the work related to the Program Admin Assistant

Provide adequate direction to ensure smooth functioning of the field teams

Any other task as allocated by line manager

Be a part of Country office content development initiatives as and when required.

Reporting relationship

Reports to the GEP program officer

Other Significant Relationships to be maintained

Ensure a client orientation in fulfilling requests of the Social Mobilizers

Ensure effective liaison with State finance /Admin and HR where required

Qualifications:Required:
Master’s degree in Education/ Social Work/ development/Gender Studies.

3-5 years of relevant work experience in areas of girls education, gender and life skills

Good interpersonal skills and a team player.

Basic computer skills.

Strong organizational and planning skills including the ability to monitor progress of program implementation.

Ability to juggle multiple priorities simultaneously and take initiative.

Prior success working closely and building relationships with diverse groups of people.

Prior experience in facilitation and/or training.

Experience working with and or counselling adolescent girls.

Fluency in Hindi/ state specific language and English.

Familiarity or experience with gender issues, girls’ education and/or community development preferred.

Preferred:
Prior experience of living and/ working in semi urban and/or urban communities and an understanding of the government school systems.

Prior experience of working closely with the community, school teachers and government officials

Experience in team handling and supervision

English fluency preferred.

Compensation:
Room to Read offers competitive pay with excellent benefits. The non-monetary compensation includes a unique opportunity to be part of an innovative, meaningful, and rapidly growing organization that is changing transforming the lives of millions of children in developing countries on literacy and gender equality in education.

Location(s)

India – Rajasthan

To be successful at Room to Read, you will also:
Have passion for our mission and a strong desire to impact a dynamic nonprofit organization

Be a proactive and innovative thinker who achieves results and creates positive change

Have a very high level of personal and professional integrity and trustworthiness

Embrace diversity and a commitment to collaboration

Thrive in a fast-paced and fun environment

Room to Read is proud to be an equal opportunity employer committed to identifying and developing the skills and leadership of people from diverse backgrounds. EOE/M/F/Vet/Disabled