Jordan: Syria: Senior Humanitarian Liaison Officer
Country: Jordan
Closing date: 22 Sep 2013
Syria: Senior Humanitarian Liaison Officer
Syrian Humanitarian Communications Programme (HCP)
Reports to: Chief of PartyLocation: Amman, Jordan, with extensive travelling across the regionDuration: 11 monthsAnticipated start date: Monday October 21, 2013 (TBC)
Deadline for applications: Sunday September 22, 2013 (23:59 BST)
Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted
- Position subject to confirmation of funding + + +
BACKGROUND:
Initially based in Amman, Internews will implement a pan-regional Humanitarian Communications Program (HCP) that will provide Syrian IDPs, refugees, host communities and diaspora groups across the region with vital humanitarian and community information that affects their everyday lives.
Through humanitarian radio broadcasts and TV programs, community participation through SMS/mobile technology, social media channels, crisis mapping, a dedicated online platform and other relevant and secure communication channels, the HCP will disseminate timely, actionable and useful humanitarian information for target audiences about e.g. how to access and register for aid, provision of food, water, shelter, security conditions, referral services, health practices and services, to name a few.
Equally important, the HCP will foster audiences’ participation and bring voices and community feedback into humanitarian operations. The aim is to support 2-way communication between target audiences and humanitarian service providers.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES include the following; other duties may be assigned:
• Listen/learn first, advocate later: Understanding national and international response capacities and coordination mechanisms, advocate, educate, forge consensus and support operational response mechanisms amongst a variety of humanitarian stakeholder on the vital importance of establishing a 2-way communication flow with affected communities and the Internews’ humanitarian media response and services.
• Representation: Represent the coordination and liaison work of the Internews team and actively participate in all relevant humanitarian coordination fora (i.e. cluster/sector meetings, Inter-cluster Coordination) to identify critical information needs for affected populations and to provide feedback on relevant production content. This also includes liaising staff from the Secretariat from the Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities (CDAC) Network, as required.
• Networking: In coordination with the Chief of Party, develop, maintain, and establish excellent working relationships with a wide range of humanitarian organizations -including Humanitarian and Refugee Coordinators, Emergency Directors and Country Directors- and government representatives, ensuring they understand the project and what it has to offer them in their daily work vis-à-vis service delivery and feedback mechanisms.
• Contact database: Maintain and update a database with all the relevant contacts (i.e. spokespersons and focal points) from the different organizations and government departments involved in humanitarian response.
• Partnership development: Ensure collaboration with different elements and members of the humanitarian architecture, including relevant cluster/sector leads, OCHA, UNHCR and needs assessment experts, to name a few through active participation in relevant coordination for and bilateral meetings.
• Feedback loop: In coordination with the Research & Learning Manager, ensure that feedback gained from project activities is made available to humanitarian organizations (i.e. brief presentations at cluster/sector meetings and other coordination fora, social media...), and government officials, as required.
• Editorial input: Propose story ideas for production as required (e.g. sourcing stories and information from different stakeholders and assisting production team in arranging interviews; helping with the production when necessary; and arranging logistics and meetings/visits for local production teams, as required).
• Daily rundowns: Depending on the needs of the project, compile and distribute daily rundowns with the headlines of Internews‘ humanitarian communication program (i.e. radio, TV, SMS, crisismap) via e.g. email, social media, or relevant other means to all relevant humanitarian stakeholders.
• Regular Situation Reports/updates: Compile and distribute regular situation reports on the outputs and activities of the coordination and liaison effort and the overall Internews response for internal and external use (e.g. OCHA, UNHCR, CDAC-Network updates…) via e-newsletter and social media.
• Reporting: Contribute to overall written program reporting for a variety of funders.
• Any other duties as required.
QUALIFICATIONS:
• English language fluency is required.
• Experience in the MENA region and Arabic fluency are highly desired.
• 5-10 years working in relief operations in challenging environments, including countries in conflict, transitional, post-conflict situations.
• Excellent working knowledge of the mandates and modalities of the international humanitarian sector.
• Proven experience working with media and communications in humanitarian contexts.
• Excellent interpersonal and networking skills and the ability to liaise authoritatively with figures from the humanitarian community, local media, local government and army, and other relevant actors, including donors, when required.
• An understanding of the vision/mission, core values and objectives of Internews.
• Understanding of and passion for the area of communications with disaster-affected communities.
• Experience in building and effectively managing and supervising local staff.
• Knowledge of Ushahidi/crisis mapping, mobile technology and SMS, and social media – candidates with active, professional social media presence will be highly considered.
• Demonstrated effective interpersonal skills, pro-activeness, creative problem-solving and ethical management.
• Excellent critical thinking, and communication and reporting skills, both written and oral.
• Psychological resilience and a sense of humour.
• Relevant university degree.
ABOUT INTERNEWS EUROPE & INTERNEWS HUMANITARIAN COMMUNICATION PROGRAMS:
Internews Europe (www.internews.eu) is an international media development organization whose mission is to empower local media worldwide to give people the news and information they need, the ability to connect, and the means to make their voices heard.
Since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Internews Europe and its sister organization in the US, Internews (www.internews.org), have been present in major humanitarian crises around the world, establishing critical links between affected populations, local media, and humanitarian agencies to provide life-saving information and set up effective two-way communication platforms.
Internews is a founding member and host at its London office of the Communicating with Disaster-Affected Communities (CDAC) Network (www.cdacnetwork.org), a ground breaking cross-sector collaboration between aid agencies, UN organizations, the Red Cross Movement, and media development organizations that recognizes information and 2-way communication as key humanitarian deliverables.
Internews and the CDAC Network believe that COMMUNICATION IS AID - watch this 2-minute animation and see why: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6bB0y8DdYY
Internews Europe is an ECHO partner and is pre-qualified to the DFID’s Rapid Response Facility (RRF).
Learn more about Internews' Humanitarian Communication Programs online and download a brief overview of our humanitarian work in 2012 here.
Follow Internews’ humanitarian work also on Twitter: @jqg @internews and @internewseurope and check news and updates on humanitarian communications through @CDACN and the hashtag #commisaid.
How to apply:
TO APPLY:
Please visit Internews' website to apply: https://ch.tbe.taleo.net/CH17/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=INTERNEWS&...
Or http://www.internews.org/jobs
