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Job Title:    Program Assistant (5 Fresher
Job Opportunities)

Organization: Mercy Corps

Duty Station: Uganda

Reports to: Program Officer

About US:

Mercy Corps has been present in Uganda since 2006, focusing
its interventions on economic and agricultural development, maternal child
health and nutrition, governance, conflict management and humanitarian
response. In 2017, Mercy Corps had an impact on almost 1 million beneficiaries
in Uganda through our work focusing on building resilience and enabling
economic growth, improving opportunities to attain better health and nutrition,
and improving governance and conflict management. Common themes include
community engagement, inclusive development, gender, and working in partnership
with local government, the private sector and civil society actors.

About USAID Project:

Mercy Corps Uganda is implementing a five year USAID funded
Activity named ‘Apolou’ in the Eastern Districts of the Karamoja sub-region of
Uganda. The Activity is implemented in five Districts of Karamoja: Karenga,
Kotido, Kaabong, Moroto and Amudat.

Job Summary:  The primary focus of the Program Assistant
will be to respond to the needs of communities through the integrated set of
activities under Apolou. The Program Assistant will focus on mobilizing the
different groups / platforms within their community, and determine the capacity
building needs of the group leaders. The Program Assistant will also mobilize
the surrounding government and private sector systemic structures and similarly
identify capacity building needs of these structures. The Program Assistant
will adopt an “adaptive” management approach to understand the needs of the groups
within the community and the external support structures to determine
appropriate capacity building measures to sustainably strengthen the capacity
and commitment of community leaders and extension agents. This will provide an
opportunity for staff growth in various technical areas but also benefit the
participants in that they receive a cross sector of interventions/services
delivered at the same time through community dialogues. The role of Program
Assistant will be to identify community needs for capacity building, seek for
technical support through the Program Officer to train, oversee, support and
work with other Governance structures both formal (VHTs, WUCs, ALCs etc.) and
informal (Traditional Authorities i.e. elders, kraal leaders etc.) in community
engagement meetings/dialogue processes. The Program Assistant will ensure that
activities are sequenced, layered and integrated for comprehensive service
delivery. The Program Assistant will closely work with staff from local
partners in the Apolou Activity to strengthen integration. Team. Program
Assistants will work closely with MEL teams to ensure that data capture into
CommCare takes place.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:  

Program Implementation

·       
Implement weekly, monthly and quarterly
workplans aligned to the DIP

·       
Sensitize community leadership on different
Apolou thematic areas i.e. Governance, MCHN, WASH, Gender, SBCC, Adolescents
and Livelihoods.

·       
Conduct participant identification exercises for
the different activities in the community.

·       
Mobilize participants for planned activities in
respective locations for technical teams to work with.

·       
Organize and supervise community trainings in
line with the approved work plan and budget based on Multi Sectoral approach.

·       
Lead and/or support respective community members
to lead community dialogues based of the different technical areas.

·       
Coordinate with all sectors in Apolou to ensure
complementary approaches, monitor implementation of project activities and
document learnings and success stories.

·       
Collaborate with fellow Program Assistants to
ensure team success, including but not limited to logistics coordination,
temporary support during leave, etc., as advised by Program Officers.

Gender and Youth Integration

·       
Ensure that program activities apply gender
equity and youth empowerment principles, and meet the varying needs of men and
boys; women and girls; and other vulnerable groups

Monitoring and Evaluation

·       
Responsible for data gathering, data validation,
quality control and timely data submission including gender and age
disaggregated data.

·       
Support and mentor community structures
including but not limited to VHTs, MCGs, MCAs, AVAs, LCs, RACs, Mentors, FA, PDCs
on data collection and use.

·       
Troubleshoot monitoring and evaluation
challenges for proactive problem solving with support of team leader and
M&E team.

·       
Utilize qualitative and quantitative data to
inform program implementation.

·       
Actively documenting best practices and lessons
learned to share with team during routine monitoring, coordination meetings and
other learning opportunities.

·       
Prepare and submit timely and quality weekly and
monthly reports

Influence and Representation

·       
Promote Apolou Activity visibility at both
Community and Sub County level.

·       
Ensure establishment and maintenance of
relationships with communities, village councils and local government in Apolou
target areas.

·       
Coordination of field activities with other NGO
and local government partners to avoid duplication of services and support an
enabling environment for health promotion.

·       
When needed, support visits from district and
sub-county government, regional and HQ based staff and external visitors, such
as donors and media, in collaboration with Program officers.

·       
Support Apolou activities with key stakeholders,
ensuring collaboration with counterparts in partner organization in relevant
meetings, internal and external.

·       
Establish partnerships to leverage resources

Ethics and Integrity

·       
All Mercy Corps staff are expected to behave
ethically and demonstrate highest integrity in their professional and personal
life. Mercy Corps has zero tolerance to any form of fraud, corruption, abuse,
harassment or exploitation. Any breach of our policies or misconduct will lead
to disciplinary action or may lead to termination.

Security

·       
Ensure data protection policies are adhered to,
establishing security controls for software, hardware and archive beneficiary
databases

·       
Ensure compliance with security procedures and
policies as determined by country leadership

·       
Proactively ensure that team members operate in
a secure environment and are aware of policies.

Organizational Learning

·       
As part of our commitment to organizational
learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are
more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve, we expect
all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit
Mercy Corps as well as themselves.

·       
Accountability to Beneficiaries

·       
Mercy Corps team members are expected to support
all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our beneficiaries and to
international standards guiding international relief and development work,
while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the
design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

·       
Sensitise communities on Apolou’s CARM system
and encourage them to share feedback through the promoted channels

Other:

·       
Conduct himself/herself both professionally and
personally in such a manner as to bring credit to Mercy Corps and to not
jeopardize its humanitarian mission

·       
Other duties as assigned

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

·       
The Mercy Corps Program Assistant must hold an Advanced
Training Certificate or Diploma

·       
One to two years’ experience in conducting
community mobilization, training, and networking

·       
Experience in capacity building with communities
in Karamoja

·       
Experience and skills in working with other
NGOs, government partners, and local community-based organizations.

·       
Fluency in local languages prevalent within the
operational district where assigned (essential)

·       
Computer literacy skills

·       
Ability to ride a motorcycle with a valid riding
permit is desired

·       
The successful candidate will be energetic, able
to work long hours outside of the office. The successful candidate will also
have strong attention to detail, the ability to communicate well with community
representatives and be committed to maintaining a compliant workplace, free of
fraud and corruption.

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified candidates are encouraged to apply
online at the link below

Click
Here

Deadline: 9^th September 2020

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