Consultant, GEP

Designation: Consultant, GEP

Duration: 15^th December 2024 to 14^th June 2025

Program: Girls’ Education Program

Location: Vasai, Palghar (Maharashtra)

No. of Openings: One (1)

Working days – Monday to Saturday

Working timing – 9:30 am to 6:00 pm

Organization Profile:

Room to Read India was established in 2003 and presently has programs in ten states – Chhattisgarh, Delhi NCR, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh.

Room to Read is a global organization transforming the lives of millions of children in low-income communities by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education. Founded in 2000 on the belief that World Change Starts with Educated Children®, our innovative model focuses on deep, systemic transformation within schools during two time periods that are most critical in a child’s schooling: early primary school for literacy acquisition and secondary school for girls’ education. We work in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations, and governments to develop literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children and ensure girls can complete secondary school with the skills necessary to negotiate key life decisions.

By focusing on the quality of education provided within the communities and ensuring these outcomes are measured, we have created a model that can be replicated, localized, and sustained by governments. With its global headquarters in San Francisco, Room to Read till date has benefited 32 million children across 21 low-income countries.

Position Overview:

The Girls’ Education Program is currently operating in 7 States across India – Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, New Delhi, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Specifically, the program seeks to achieve increased years of schooling for girls and increase girls’ self-awareness, decision-making and problem-solving skills.

The Consultant - Social Mobilizer is responsible for implementing the Girls’ Education program at the field level. Consultant - Social Mobilizer is the first point of contact for the girls whom we work with; she is also the point of contact for the schools and parents and hence is critical to the success of the program.

The Consultant - Social Mobilizer will report to the Program Associate.  The position will be field based; she will be responsible for a group of 90 girls as their mentor, support system and motivator.

Role and Responsibilities:

A.               Program planning, implementation

• Develop a thorough understanding of Room to Read’s Girls’ Education program design, objectives and outcomes.
• Implement program activities as per design maintaining fidelity 
• Undertake corrective action and incorporate feedback when provided by the supervisor for life skills sessions etc.
• Participate in program planning in consultation with Program Associate and other state level staff. 
• Regularly attend weekly and monthly workshops where weekly and monthly plans are made and reviewed.
• Attend mandatory training of Social Mobilizer.

B.           Family and Community engagement

• Have a thorough understanding of social issues, safety concerns and child protection issues affecting girl participants and an awareness of available social safety net mechanisms, schemes and referrals. (With child protection and safety issues of girls that emerged through a study done in India last year and the new mentoring module that requires the program to address such issues, we need a social mobilizer who is well networked and well acquainted with existing social safety net mechanisms, schemes and also referrals; this skill was not required for our current social mobilizer).
• Organize and lead family and community meetings and consultations with school staff, parents and community members/organizations as per design; discuss life skill content and issues with them in a tactful manner (especially sensitive/taboo issues like early marriage and attending school during menstrual cycle).
• Seek opportunities for networking at local level and create a resource pool to be used as a referral if there is a need.
• Facilitate visits of donors, INCO and SO team members.
• Facilitate and support SO/INCO team members in conducting research/ survey/ study/ data collection/ baseline etc.

C.           Working with girls

• Conduct life skills sessions for 90 girls in batches of 20-25 as per the prescribed session content and as per agreed plan. Each girl will need to be provided with a minimum of 16 life skills sessions in one year. This would require a thorough understanding of the content and skills of delivering it tactfully (especially the content related to reproductive health). The reproductive health sessions that has been introduced in the worldwide GEP modules require more experienced professionals who are well equipped to deliver the content as well as handle queries of parents and convince them on the need for these sessions.
• Form Life skills clubs/Children groups and facilitate regular meetings and discussions of these groups; at least 8 meetings are to be held every year. Ensure that through these groups the girl participants develop skills of articulation and self-expression and initiate action on issues they face in their lives. This would require the social mobilizer to have excellent facilitation skills and understanding of the principles of child participation.  
• Distribute the newsletter GUPSHUP, initiate discussion around it and hold follow-up activities. (This requires an ability to engage with text in a magazine format written for girls – to eventually lead them into an analysis of the magazines/mass media and inspire them to express and deconstruct gender stereotypes)
• Help girls to develop wall magazines and write for state-level Gupshup so that their voices can be captured
• Mentoring: Conduct group mentoring sessions for 90 girls in batches of 10-12 girls as per prescribed content guidelines and record each session. Plan out the group mentoring sessions in association with the Program Associate, taking into account the needs expressed by the girls. Conduct individual mentoring sessions as needed. This may need creation of new content wherever needed (The new mentoring module being introduced requires social mobilizers to be barefoot counselors – not just mentoring girls in groups but also identifying challenges being faced by girls, developing sessions to address the challenges, identifying the content for these sessions and developing the content if needed) 

D.           Setting up Life skills centres /Gender Resource Centres:

• Setting up a Gender resource Centre (GRC) for life skills in schools /community for life skills sessions
• Ensuring proper functioning and usage of GRC as per discussion with state GEP teams
• Ensure the space is clean, safe and welcoming to  girls
• Ensure the space is well stocked with drawings/articles/ expressions of children’s voices ; changing and putting up the articles/drawings/paintings on bulletin board periodically at least once a month

E.            Home visits

• Mapping data as per the risk and response protocol and then making specific home visits. (The objective of the risk and response protocol is to take action based on an analysis of the four risk factors for girls dropping out. This involves tracking of each girl, understanding the risk, flagging concerns, suggesting solutions, motivating the girls to take necessary action and ultimately preventing the girl from dropping out. All this requires a very high level of analytical and strategic thinking skills, which is not currently available in the SMs). 
• Undertaking regular school visits
• Handling any critical matters that may emerge from these interactions
• Organizing/conducting programmatic activities at school and community as per mutually agreed plan and responsible for managing relationships with school, community and respond to issues that may arise.
• The quality of home visits is expected to be of high as the expectation is of higher levels of engagement and effective mentoring and outreach to families

F.            Record keeping, Reporting and monitoring

• Update records of attendance and parent meetings regularly
• Prepare and submit weekly plans during weekly reviews
• Timely record keeping, updating the data and sharing analysis of various parameters like attendance sheets, parents meetings, drop outs etc.
• Filling up socio-economic profile of the girls
• Regular physical verification of girls on sample basis
• Periodic cohort risk assessment and analysis of it. Flagging issues of concern. It is expected that Social Mobilizers will undertake risk mapping of the entire cohort as many girls drop out during transition from grade 8 and grade 11. They would need to flag these cases and identify local solutions that may keep the girls in the schools.
• Identify case studies of girls, schools/communities and best practices and gather all related data and information.
• Maintaining stock register at school/center level
• Provide a list of materials required for the girls to the supervisors.

Qualification & Experience:

Essential

• Bachelor’s degree in education / social sciences or equivalent/ or higher 
• Minimum experience of 2yrs. (1-2 years of relevant experience in the education /development sector including internships).
• Good verbal and written communication skills in English / Hindi and the local language of the state where position is based. Like Marathi for Mumbai location.

Preferred:

• Master’s degree in education / social sciences or equivalent preferred.
• Counseling diploma and/or experience of having worked on mentoring /counseling issues.
• Experience working on life skills/gender /adolescents.
• Strong planning and project implementation skills.
• Ability to work in remote area and travel to communities for meetings.
• Ability to work effectively with schools and communities
• Strong written and oral communication skills
• Good interpersonal skills and a team player

To be successful as a member of the Room to Read team, you will also:

• Have a passion for our mission and a strong desire to impact a dynamic non-profit organization
• Be innovative and creative – not afraid to try something new and inspire others to do so
• Have a solution-oriented approach
• Have a very high level of personal and professional integrity and trustworthiness
• Have a strong work ethic and require minimal direction
• Work well independently as well as part of a team
• Thrive in a fast-paced and fun environment

Room to Read is a child-safe organization; all personnel are expected to adhere to Room to Read’s Child Protection Policy and Child Protection Code of Conduct.

Application Procedure:

Interested candidate can share updated resume at koyana.dutta@roomtoread.org mentioned subject line “Consultant, Social Mobilizer (Palghar)”.

 

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