CLEAR Global

Contract length: 12 months with possibility to extend

Hours: Full-time

Location: Maiduguri, Nigeria

Travel: within NE Nigeria, possibly to other parts of Nigeria

Reporting to: Program Manager, Accountability to Affected People

Salary range: 1,300-1,700 USD/month (NGN equivalent)

Deadline for applications: July 7, 2022*

*Due to the urgency of this vacancy, screening and interviews will commence immediately and the candidate can be selected at any stage before the closing date.

CLEAR Global is an equal-opportunity employer, committed to having a diverse team where individuals of all backgrounds collaborate and learn from one another. We believe we can be most effective with diverse experience and expertise in our team. We recruit on merit, actively seek diverse applicant pools and encourage candidates of all backgrounds to apply. We do not discriminate on the basis of disability, age, gender identity and expression, national origin, race and ethnicity, religious beliefs, marital or parental status, or sexual orientation, and welcome all types of diversity.

The Role
The Capacity-Building Officer will be responsible for adapting, localising, delivering and monitoring CLEAR Global/TWB’s capacity building for humanitarian workers, community leaders, and community workers. The Capacity-Building Officer will be expected to support community leaders, translators, interpreters, field workers and volunteers of humanitarian agencies providing services in northeast Nigeria as well as working to raise awareness of the language barriers present in the response overall. 

This role will involve increasing the capacity of community leaders, translators, interpreters, field workers and volunteers to bridge the communication divide between the affected population and the humanitarians working to serve them through effective engagement with and promotion of clear 2-way communication with the affected population.

Responsibilities

Capacity building program development

• Capacity building/training needs assessment
• Adapt / localise existing curricula
  • Work with the team and to review existing initiatives 
  • Identify gaps and proposed capacity building program and/or delivery method and as well as working to ensure materials are appropriate for the local context
• Implement all training and capacity building efforts
• Support consolidation of field and desk linguistic research
• Take direct responsibility for all capacity building sessions, for example, from participant identification to training delivery, logistical arrangements, ensuring costs are covered, to providing training reports, etc.

Strengthening local accountability and community engagement

Working with local leaders, emerging leaders, and civil society, and in coordination with the CEA Working Group, the capacity building officer will identify and strengthen local accountability and community engagement mechanisms through 

• workshops on community engagement, effective communication, and accountability
• training on working with and getting information to and from relevant stakeholders
• providing regularly updated multilingual information, 
• Access to digital tools for information sharing, Attention will particularly be given to building capacity for the  inclusion of women and girls, the elderly and vulnerable.
• Monthly dissemination of key information in 9 languages in text and audio format, initially based on sector priorities, and moving to responding to feedback from the dashboard and the local leaders themselves; 
• Production of community engagement information, tools and materials.

Monitoring, evaluation and impact documentation  and ongoing support 

• Contribute to designing and implementing participant, session and project evaluation tools
• Responsible for tracking all capacity building-related activities
• Work with the programme team and participants to determine the need for follow-up support.

Other duties as required

• Ensure timely and accurate reporting to feed into overall project reports in line with donor requirements

• Document and disseminate best practices, innovations, lessons learned and proven methodologies
• Contribute other written materials that support CLEAR Global/TWB needs (brochures, summary project information, etc.)

• Feed into CLEAR Global/TWB’s advocacy and communication efforts as needed 
• Maintain open and professional relationships with the internal team, volunteers, and partners
• Any reasonable duty requested by the line manager

The role will evolve along with the overall project to reflect the changing language needs of the affected population and humanitarian community in the emergency response as needed.

Requirements 

• Degree (or recognized formal qualifications) in education or social sciences 
• 3+ years of demonstrated experience delivering training and facilitation in a linguistically diverse environment
• Experience in working on capacity building, particularly with local leaders and women leaders
• Fluent command of Hausa and English required, 
• Knowledge of Kanuri and other languages of northeast Nigeria a plus
• Willingness to travel to insecure locations for work 
• Experience delivering Training of Trainers (ToT) content 
• Formal teaching experience a plus 
• Demonstrated community outreach a plus
• Track record of working with small teams
• Familiarity with the translation, language or content industries a plus

The Capacity Building Officer should be a creative self-starter with a strong sense of initiative, who is enthusiastic about the importance of increasing access to knowledge through language. The right candidate is an energetic team player who agrees with CLEAR Global/TWB´s Core Values and who can work both individually and as part of a team. 

• Able to innovate to find creative solutions 
• Willing to explore new technologies
• Active listener, diplomatic and solution-oriented
• Previous experience with non-profit organizations, particularly in development and/or disaster relief, is a plus

Background

In northeast Nigeria, humanitarian organizations are working to support some 1.9 million internally displaced people (IDPs) and the communities hosting them. But language is a challenge: in this linguistically diverse part of the world, people forced from their homes don’t always speak the same language as the people around them. International aid organizations may lack the skills to communicate with everyone in their own mother tongue. They often also lack information about the language and communication needs of affected people.

TWB has been providing language services in northeast Nigeria for just over a year, building humanitarian capacity for communication in the right language and format. A lot needs to be done. TWB in Nigeria is rapidly scaling up its teams and programs to support responders’ efforts to communicate more effectively, with funding from DFID and ECHO and partnerships with key humanitarian responders like the Norwegian Refugee Council, the International Organization for Migration and the International Rescue Committee.

We do not want one third of internally displaced people to lack information in their language. We do not want widespread communication gaps to compromise data quality. We do not want the too common reliance on written communication to exclude vulnerable groups.

So we innovate, we research, we bring unique expertise and approaches to:

• Provide evidence to inform communication strategies, as we have just done with our latest report on audio communication for example. 

• Promote accountability through two-way communication in the right languages. TWB helps tailor community feedback mechanisms to the language and communication needs of the most vulnerable.
• Reduce confusion with multilingual terminology databases. TWB’s sectoral glossaries are available for free on a mobile web app with offline and audio capability. 

• Train interpreters and field workers. Training in the basics of interpreting limits information loss and aids confidential, ethical support services. Language training for data collectors and program staff promotes data quality and program impact.
• Improve understanding with plain language, translation, and audio. Clear content in plain language using pictures and audio benefits the widest audience. We offer written and audio translations, and support pictorial messaging.

Core Values

Translators without Borders/CLEAR Global employees and volunteers are made of people who believe passionately about the value of this work and take personal responsibility for achieving the mission. CLEAR Globlal/Translators without Borders’ mission and organizational spirit embody the core values established in its strategic framework: 

Excellence: As the leading voice for communicating humanitarian information in the right language, Translators without Borders is a leader in the translation industry and in the non-profit sector. 

Integrity: Translators without Borders believes that every person, whether it is the people who we serve, our volunteers or our staff, has value, deserves respect and has inherent dignity. 

Empowerment: Translators without Borders believes in using language to empower people around the world to control their own development and destiny.

Innovation: Translators without Borders recognizes and celebrates the power of innovation to address humanitarian and crisis issues around the world.

Sustainability: Translators without Borders recognizes that meeting our mission necessitates establishment and maintenance of a solid financial and organizational infrastructure.

Tolerance: Our staff and volunteers are highly knowledgeable and skilled; value each other, our partner and our recipients; create a supportive work environment; and, conduct themselves professionally at all times. 

CLEAR Global may re-advertise the vacancy, cancel the recruitment, offer an appointment with a modified job description or for a different duration at its discretion.