Website SOS Children's Village

Position : Assistant Village Director-Family Strengthening
Location : Nagapattinam
Language proficiency : English, Hindi, Tamil

About the Organisation

SOS Children’s Villages of India is an independent, non-governmental and non-profit organisation working for the holistic development of parentless children, women and children belonging to vulnerable families. Founded in 1949 in Austria, SOS Children’s Villages began its operations in India in 1964. For over 50 years, we have reached out to over 25,000 children through our 32 SOS Children’s Villages and 32 community projects in India. SOS Children’s Villages of India was established in 1964 at Faridabad near Delhi. SOS India has worked with children, communities, disaster struck and disaster prone areas, giving hope to weary communities and families. SOS India is the largest operation within the SOS International Federation of 134 countries.

At SOS Children’s Villages of India, we are committed to the welfare of parentless and abandoned children and to strengthening families and communities as a preventive measure in the fight against abandonment and social neglect.

Our Programmes

Family Like Care
Family Strengthening
Kinship Care
Emergency Childcare
Foster Care
Short Stay Homes
Special Needs Childcare
Education & Youth Skilling

About the role

To Plan, Monitor and Implement the Family Strengthening program with a focus on Livelihood improvement amongst vulnerable families.

Areas of Responsibility

1. Deepening the focus on Sustainable Livelihoods Approach/agenda in FS program:

Support program/project and unit heads to incorporate alternative sources of sustainable livelihoods targets defined institutional position.
Take lead in creative, innovative and proactive role ensuring improving focus on livelihoods and related issues to the Programs/projects.
Help the local team to design livelihood activities promoting the increase in income of vulnerable families.
Document lessons learned related, evaluate impact and modify community approaches accordingly

2. Program Support and Advisory Role:

Frequently coordinate and communicate with supervisor, program staff, livelihoods networks and working partners at local, state and national level.
Technical support to field project offices to ensure quality results in livelihood related interventions.

3. Monitoring and Evaluation:

Support and advise units heads for effective program/project monitoring at outputs and outcome level.
Support facilitate and advise monitoring and evaluation team for outcome/impact level monitoring and impact evaluation
Conduct periodic/mid-term impact evaluation/case studies on specific livelihood themes and document/publish. Prepare thematic, consultation, lesson learned reports.
Make frequent field visits to each project site or as required and provide updated feedback to supervisor
Prepare annual work plan and review quarterly in consultation with unit heads and location In-charges
Prepare and ensure reflection of livelihoods component in annual report of the organisation and rovide technical support for Network’s technical progress report preparation
Support external/evaluation process

4. Capacity Building and Enabling Partners:

Conduct orientation and enhance field project office staff’s capacity in focusing on alternative sustainable livelihoods approach.
Develop a team of livelihood point persons across FS locations and build their capacities in management and effective implementation of livelihoods at their locations

Working Relationships:

Internal:

Interact frequently with Deputy National Director-FS, Zonal FS Coordinators and Program Support staff.

External:

Interact frequently with existing governmental, non-governmental, civil society partners and Livelihoods Network
Interact regularly with consultants, researchers, socio-economists, and possible/future partners
Participate and represent the organisation in Livelihood related networks and meetings and make presentations

Minimum Work Requirements:

Knowledge: A Master’s degree in Sociology/Anthropology, Sustainable Rural Development, Economics or relevant Social Science field.

Experience:

At least 8-10 years of field experience in country in the implementing and managing community level sustainable livelihoods is required.
Working with Livelihoods programs especially at the location level is much desired
The individual should have updated contemporary development issues/knowledge and extensive working experience in the understanding of Sustainable Development, Livelihoods Approaches, experienced in capacity building, strategic planning as well as monitoring and evaluation.
Prior experience of working with field based, diverse ethnics, cultures, linguistic groups of country is desirable.
Experience of working on EU Livelihood programs will eb given preference

Skills and Abilities:

Candidate should have excellent communication skills that include report writing, presentation, documentation, consultation and facilitation in English
Candidate should have excellent communication skills that include report writing, presentation, documentation, consultation and facilitation in English
Candidate should have excellent communication skills that include report writing, presentation, documentation, consultation and facilitation in English

Competencies: