National Expert to provide capacity building to the National Forum of Visually Impaired Youth in Albania)
Alert
Vacancy
Background:
The Presence will support the National Forum of Visually Impaired Youth of Albania to enable it to engage with strategic and operational planning, so as to improve its performance in developing local and central level activism, membership enrollment and retention and other membership-focused actions aimed at enabling the Forum to effectively engage and liaise with youngsters with sight impairments throughout Albania.
Tasks and responsibilities:
I .In General:
In line with the UB 2020 on civil society, Activity 2.2, a local consultant will prepare and deliver a training aimed at establishing a capacity within the National Forum of Visually Impaired Youth of Albania to develop and take ownership of their strategic objectives based on priorities and to reflect these in an annual action plan. Further to assessing organizational gaps, the consultant will prepare and deliver a 4-days training to the Forum and provide an outline for its future functioning in terms of strategic planning and operations. The consultant will perform a needs-assessment meeting/ informal interviews with selected members to this end. The local consultant will develop a training agenda, followed by one 4-day training program for 20 selected leaders of the forum. In designing the intervention, he or she should take into account part III of this Section “Identified practical and technical needs of the Forum”.
II. Specifically:
The consultant will:
• Review existing planning and statutory documents of the National Forum to gain an overview of the regulatory/formal framework of the functioning of the Forum; • Conduct 10 semi-structured interviews with the Forum leaders, based on a template agreed upon by OSCE to identify their perspectives of challenges and bottlenecks related to the functioning of the Forum and produce a report with the findings. • On the basis of the findings from the interviews and review of statutory documents: Draft a training program (including agenda, materials for trainees, and lecturer’s notes) • Implement one 4-days training program, in which proposed strategic and annual objectives and priorities are developed, discussed, reviewed and endorsed by the Forum. • On the basis of the above: Evaluate training and provide final training report with suggestions and recommendation for future interventions to support the self-organisation of the National Forum of Youth with Sight Impairments in Albania
III. Identified practical and technical needs of the Forum
Discussions of the Presence with the Forum of Youth with Sight Impairments have enabled the Presence to reach to the following conclusions:
The functioning of the National Youth Forum of the Youth with Sight Impairments (FRV) throughout Albania, should build on the ability of the forum to constantly involve as many young people as possible in its activities and in the decision-making of the Forum. There are challenges in this regard, as work is currently organized from Tirana and mainly by phone, making it difficult to have the opportunity to meet directly in the cities where blind young people live. Taking into account these recurring, challenges, there is a need for the leadership of the Forum to establish a structured routine of communication with the local branches/local members, to prioritize communications, and to go about them in strategic manner, balancing between regular/formal communications and need for flexibility and personal interaction. Furthermore, the Forum needs to enable its members to have a say in the central level decision-making and to have reliable guidelines and procedures on this.
• The Forum’s core leadership team (10-12 persons) needs to hone its capacities to function as a core group of activists who can plan together and get organised to cover the whole of the territory by engaging youngsters with sight impairments as full members of the forum, able to contribute in its activities and participate in its decision-making.
• The forum needs to be strategic about its outreach to potential membership, about strategies for member retention, about planning of regular activities and events to engage new and old members and to keep them interested to contribute to the Forum.
• It is important that the members of the core group of the forum see themselves as organisers and cultivate their self-confidence at this time, before the activities to reach out to other youngsters can be initiated.
• The leaders of the forum should become able to identify the areas on which its members need become able advice and support upon completing the full cycle of studies, (employment rights, information rights, continued education rights) they already have by law, and on paper, but cannot enjoy because of lack of knowledge and access. They need to be able to assess the needs of their members, and provide basic coaching to those needing advice on the above areas.
• The Forum’s efforts and activities need to be supported by awareness campaign related to youth rights, disability rights, and employment rights, inter alia, through social platforms and through the involvement of blind young people remotely by creating national discussion platforms aimed at increasing involvement and participation of young people with sight impairments. In order to be successful in this aspect, they need to identify and address training needs in the field of content creation for social media, communication and public relation skills.
Expected Output/Deliverable: - Interview Report, 5 pg., by 23 September - Draft Training Program 20 pg., by 24 September - Delivery of training intervention, (4 days), in the period 24-27 September - Final Report on draft Strategic Plan of the National Forum of Youth with Sight Impairments of Albania (10 pg.) by 30 September
Necessary Qualifications
1. The consultant should have 10 years or more of direct work experience in the field of management of projects, services and programs targeting social integration, social inclusion and rehabilitation of persons with sight impairments; 2. The consultant should have previous experience of cooperation with national and international organizations on managing and delivering similar projects; 3. The consultant should possess expertise on the substantive, technical and organizational aspects related to the social inclusion of persons with visual impairments, and knowledge of institutions and organizations working with the community of visually impaired persons in Albania and socialization of youth with visual impairments
Remuneration
The payment for this consultancy will be in line with applicable OSCE rates.
How to apply
All applications are due by 20 September 2020. For more detailed information on the structure and work of the OSCE Presence in Albania, please see: http:// www.osce.org/presence-in-albania
If you wish to apply for this position, please use the OSCE's online application link found under https://jobs.osce.org/.
The OSCE retains the discretion to re-advertise the vacancy or to cancel the recruitment.
The OSCE is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all national, religious, ethnic and social backgrounds to apply.
Please be aware that the OSCE does not request payment at any stage of the application and review process. Delayed nominations will not be considered.