RFP - Digital Safeguarding Consultant (Individual)

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About the Organization

Girl Effect is an international non-profit that builds media that girls want, trust and need. From chatbots to chat shows, and TV dramas to tech, our content helps adolescent girls in Africa and Asia make choices and changes in their lives.

We create safe spaces for girls, sharing facts and answering questions about health, nutrition, education, and relationships, empowering girls with the skills to negotiate and redefine what they are told is possible “for a girl”.

Our reach is 50 million and counting. And we’re using technology to reach girls at scale so every girl can choose to be in control of her body, her health, her learning and her livelihood.

Because when a girl unlocks her power to make different choices that change her life, it inspires others to do so too. She starts a ripple effect that impacts her family, community, and country.

About the Proposal

Working with girls in India, Girl Effect has created Chhaa Jaa (Go Forth and Shine) – a powerful youth brand that girls can access via social media. Chhaa Jaa focuses on inspiring, entertaining and empowering girls with the right skills and confidence to navigate adolescence – from accessing information about sexual and reproductive health to preparing them to enter the workforce.

Chhaa Jaa – Girl Effect India’s youth brand co-designed with girls in India

In June 2019, Girl Effect launched Chhaa Jaa (छा जा) – an online youth brand inspiring, entertaining and empowering girls with the right skills and confidence to navigate adolescence, from accessing information about sexual and reproductive health to preparing them to enter the workforce.

Chhaa Jaa’s content is aimed at girls aged 16-22 and is accessible online and via mobile – because we know that’s the best way to reach and interact with girls. Our ecosystem of products includes:

Digital media content that girls can access on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram that is both entertaining and informative. Characters and storylines have been developed with girls and are designed to reflect their lives and the challenges they might face;

Bak Bak Gang: An online, moderated peer-to-peer community that acts as a safe space for girls 16 and above years of age to discuss sexual and reproductive health concerns, interact closely with Chhaa Jaa’s content, explore the themes and topics that have been taboo, discuss their SRH journeys and apply what they’ve learnt to their own lives;

Bol Behen: A chatbot that offers a private way for girls to ask questions about the themes and topics raised by Chhaa Jaa content and safely get information;

Sahi Salah: An online events programme featuring experts on SRH topics.

The Objective

The role of the consultant will be to support strengthening the digital safeguarding framework for Chhaa Jaa products and other initiatives undertaken under programmes by Girl Effect in India.

This consultant role will provide the following inputs to Girl Effect on an ongoing basis.

• Digital safeguarding expertise in the design process for new and existing digital platforms and applications to ensure girls are safe and enhance their privacy;
• Digital trends and safeguarding best practices across different social media platforms.
• Knowledge and guidance on how we can develop healthy digital communities and keep platforms safe and available for girls by mitigating and preventing the risks of online harm and abuse;
• Support and advice on tightening Chhaa Jaa’s data privacy and security practices in keeping with India’s data protection laws or GDPR to protect girls’ data throughout the data life cycle. This may include, but is not limited to, developing a data breach plan and supporting the organisation with creating a workflow for secure data storage and file transfer.
• Advising Girl Effect India in-country team on emerging digital safeguarding challenges to help future-proof the organisation, collaborating with the Global Safeguarding team at Girl Effect.

The Scope

Working in close collaboration with the Global Safeguarding Manager and the Programmes team at Girl Effect - the Digital Safeguarding Consultant will look at the following, as decided by the Country Lead and Global Safeguarding Manager.

Below is an indicative list of functions to be taken up per the priorities of the safeguarding and programmes team.

• Implementation of Global Safeguarding policy in collaboration with the Safeguarding team and wider Programme team for India
• Ensure Global Safeguarding Policy is adapted to the local context - and support reviewing and updating the Girl Effect India Safeguarding Policy
• Play a key role in supporting the completion of annual Girl Effect safeguarding self-assessments, including identifying priority areas from each self-assessment and developing action plans to implement to address
• Thought leadership on digital safeguarding for Girl Effect’s programmes
• Interpret the Girl Effect Global Safeguarding Policy meaningfully for a digital-first brand in India and contextualising it accordingly
• Aligning India’s digital laws for data privacy, security and consent for young people to our digital products
• Advise and support teams to ensure that Girl Effect has robust measures in place to ensure the implementation of digital safety and data protection laws to safeguard our users' online
• Work with the safeguarding Manager to conduct surveys and develop digital-specific safeguarding training for staff (e.g. specialist safeguarding training for moderators)
• Review the current reporting and response process and create an easy and systematic way to ensure that confidential records of digital safeguarding concerns are maintained and appropriate follow-up is conducted.
• Implementation of safeguarding processes for the Chhaa Jaa programme
• Work closely with the Chhaa Jaa team to effectively implement Girl Effect India’s safeguarding policy and procedures within the programme
• Feed into the design and development of new initiatives to ensure that risks identified are mitigated and that safeguarding measures are built into all activities (risk assessment facilitation)
• Reporting and response focal point for Chhaa Jaa
• Ensure that there are clear reporting and response procedures for all activities, events and initiatives related to Chhaa Jaa
• Whenever Chhaa Jaa safeguarding concerns arise, ensure staff are given appropriate support to effectively and efficiently manage cases
• Along with the Global Safeguarding Manager, support with establishing and building relationships with key protection agencies and networks to ensure that safeguarding cases can be signposted to these agencies quickly and effectively as appropriate
• Monitor and document the outcomes of safeguarding cases signposted to agencies
• Analyse the types of cases received, and the response provided biannually to inform organisational learning and improve safeguarding practice.
• Review and update Chhaa Jaa’s key policies and procedures - privacy policy, terms and conditions, community guidelines
• Work closely with moderators to effectively respond to online comments and messages from our users and solve their specific challenges, including support by updating canned responses and updating these in line with new disclosures or questions that users ask.
• Work with programme managers to ensure that signposting services are relevant to our online user needs.
• Function-specific support and streamlining safeguarding; Create
• Leading Safeguarding Due diligence for any partners and agencies contracted (and reviewing long-term partnership agreements and updating these for those over 2 years old)
• Developing safeguarding agreements for partners
• Onboarding partners and/or young people (activity-specific)
• Developing Risk Assessments and consent forms

How to Apply

Please submit proposals, as described above, to suppliers@girleffect.org by 26th January 2023, 5:00 pm IST latest. Please clearly mark your email with the subject ‘GEEI Digital Safeguarding Consultant TOR submission.’