Job Opportunity for Project Officer – Community Extension and Institution building at Care India in Kandhamal

POSITION/DESIGNATION

Project Officer – Community Extension and Institution building

GRADE/LEVEL

G

PROJECT/UNIT

Enabling Poor Households to Switch from Traditional Cooking Practices to Clean and Environment Friendly Alternatives – Bachat-II-OD

PROJECT DURATION

Three Years (36 months)

REPORTS TO

Project Manager

LOCATION

Kandhamal, Odisha

TRAVEL

70-80% of time in project location for official purposes

ABOUT US

CARE is a not-for-profit organization working in India for over 68 years, focusing on alleviating poverty and social injustice. We do this through well-planned and comprehensive projects in health, education, livelihoods and disaster preparedness and response. Our overall goal is the empowerment of women and girls from poor and marginalized communities leading to improvement in their lives and livelihoods.

During FY 2018-19, CARE India directly reached out to 37.2 million people through 43 projects across 14 states, covering more than 80+ districts. We are part of the CARE International Confederation, working in 100 countries for a world where people live with dignity and security.

CARE India seeks a world of hope, tolerance and social justice, where poverty has been overcome and people live in dignity and security.

Our goal is to ensure that women and girls from the most marginalized communities are empowered, live in dignity and their households have secure and resilient lives. CARE India aims to accomplish this goal by working with 50 million people to help them have quality health, education, livelihoods and overcome the effects of disasters.

PROJECT DETAILS

The use of solid fuels for cooking is likely to be the largest source of indoor air pollution on a global scale. Women and young children are the most affected from Indoor air pollution. These inefficient cooking methods also contribute to climate change through emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, and aerosols such as black carbon. The use of cleaner and more efficient Improve Cook stoves can dramatically reduce exposure to harmful cook stove’s smoke. Toward this, CARE India initiated Improved Cook Stove Project (locally called as BACHAT) in January 2016, under the project, CARE India worked on Evolving a Women-centered Model of Extension of Improved Cook Stoves (ICS) for Sustained Adoption at Scale in Odisha and Chhattisgarh. The strategy of the project was promoting women leaders from existing Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and those are engaged as Sustainable Household Energy Champions (SHE Champions). 200 SHE Schools over SHG platforms were promoted in 107 project villages spread over in the two states and each SHE School were led by a SHE Champion selected from the participating SHGs leading to sustainable adoption of improved cook stoves by over 5,000 forest dependent households. The BACHAT project was concluded in 2020 with a potential to further scale up. 

Fair Climate Fund (FCF) & CARE India has designed a scale up phase for Bachat initiative based on the carbon financing – BACHAT Voluntary Project Activities (VPA) in Odisha in alignment with Gold Standard carbon project which will be financed through the sale of carbon credits over next 10 years. The phase 1 of this project will be implemented during August 2021 to December 2024 benefitting over 9,000 traditional polluting cookstove dependent households from Kalahandi and Kandhmal districts of Odisha, India. 

JOB SUMMARY

Project Officer – Community Extension and Institution building will primarily be responsible for coordinating, implementing, and completing all schedule capacity building events of the project within the stipulated time in complete coordination with the other project team members. S/he will work closely with Project Manager, Project Officer M&E and CRPs to create an enabling environment for sustainable development by adopting clean and environment friendly cooking solutions. This position will ensure that the all project related training programmes are accomplished as per the plan, with the required quality, quantity and importantly within the agreed timelines. S/he will be responsible for providing overall support for institution building, training and communication to participating communities, community mobilisers and collaborators with regard to ICS.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES/ KEY RELATIONSHIPS

Program Support

• Develop capacity building/ training guidelines and procedures
• Help, develop and put in place a strategic and integrated capacity building plan
• Take lead in developing/contextualizing training curriculum related to use of improved cook stove and promoting/strengthening community-based institutions
• Prepare training plan with each community based collective as necessary, Coordinate and arrange training programs for community resource person and community
• Provide consultation and mentorship to the development of capacity building standards and best practice, and recommend how to spread good practice around use of ICS;
• Help maintain a database of trainees
• Facilitate cookstove distribution while ensuring all the project criteria and distribute cookstoves among the beneficiaries
• Work closely with other teams –Finance, Logistics, MIS and Program, to ensure capacity building activities, tools and guidelines are prepared coherently.
• Undertake other duties as required.

Communication

• The Field Officer – Capacity Building will facilitate smooth communication and cooperation between Community, project team and other external stakeholders to be engaged with the project 
• Responsible for providing overall mentoring support to project participating / SHG members and other community members on use and benefit of ICS
• The Field Officer – Capacity Building will work with the field team to ensure that training and communication to the participating communities are undertaken in respect of planned activities and project document.
• Where necessary identify and manage consultants to provide technical and institutional training in accordance to the requirements of the participating communities and based on the assessments provided. 
• At all times the Field Officer – Capacity Building will act in a professional and courteous manner and will maintain a positive and constructive image of the Project.

Documentation and Reporting

• S/He should take the responsibility of developing timely training report
• Assist PM and M&E officer is developing project report and biannual reports and ensuring statistics are correct
• Assist the project team in collection of information in accordance with the project’s monitoring and evaluation strategy 
• Ensure adequate inputs for the periodic reporting and progress update presentations including blogs, success stories, anecdotes and photos

QUALIFICATION & EXPERIENCE

• Postgraduate/Graduate degree in Social Work/Relevant Subject
• Should have a minimum 3-4 years’ experience of managing or working in social sector/livelihood-based programme/ providing professional training/ of which at least one year should be in counseling of women and/or rural community.
• Should have minimum 2 years of working experience with a diverse team 
• Basic computer skills including working on MS Office is a must
• knowledge of reading, writing, and speaking Odia and English is essential 
• Should have a valid two-wheeler driving license          
• Prior experience of working in a livelihood or any social sector projects/organization will be a definite plus

SKILLS & COMPETENCIES

• Experience in conducting training   
• Understanding of the social, economic and political context of community in both urban and peri urban context
• Interpersonal skills to work with the multi stakeholders for development
• Work in a team, accomplish as a team and represent the team
• Good report writing skill
• Ability to perform and prioritize multiple tasks
• Strong interpersonal skills including demonstrated communication and personnel management skills.
• Good communication and presentation skills (for internal and external audiences)
• Passion for working with the communities, especially women and girls from under-privileged communities, for their empowerment
• Interested in field visits and establish rapport with communities
• Supportive in nature for the development of projects and the organization
• Time-bound and output/outcome based working culture
• Having local contacts would be an added advantage