Job Opportunity for Senior Program Associate – Systems Demonstration at Dream a Dream in Punjab

About Dream a Dream 

Dream a Dream is an Indian non-profit organisation working to transform the experience of education for the 130+ million children living in poverty in India. Our aim is to change the purpose of education towards the idea of Thriving for every child. Since 1999, Dream a Dream has mainstreamed life skills as a critical approach to help children overcome adversity and learn to thrive. Today, the organisation is transforming the Indian education ecosystem through its own programmes, through curriculum and pedagogical innovations and through the development of holistic assessment frameworks while also shifting the narratives around the purpose of education. Dream a Dream’s work is spread across 6 Indian states reaching over 2.2 million children through strategic partnerships with state governments and collaborations with other non-profits and funders in India.

ROLE: Senior Program Associate – Systems Demonstration

LOCATION: Punjab

NUMBER OF POSITIONS: 1

REPORTING MANAGER: Associate Director – Systems Demonstration – North Hub

SALARY: Rs. 8,04,000 CTC per annum

JOB RESPONSIBILITY 

The primary responsibility includes – Collaboratively execute the partnerships function to build urgency and criticality on the importance of Thriving in the ecosystem. Through developing strategic partnerships and leading the advocacy efforts of the organisation, build a movement to equip millions of young people from vulnerable backgrounds to overcome adversity and thrive in the 21st century.

Roles and Responsibilities 

• Liaise with government officials and other stakeholders for adopting Thriving as purpose of education.
• Support in achieving in organisational goal. Establishing strategic partnership with the state education system for demonstrating system on Thriving as purpose of education.
• Implementation of strategic direction of the function. Develop strong professional nexus with Policy makers, administrators and executors for discovering, dreaming, designing and delivery of curriculum focusing Thriving, specifically Life Skills, Socio-Emotional Learning and Value education.
• Manage stakeholders and participate in discover, dream, design and contextualisation of Happiness Curriculum in terms of Punjab and in language accepted and used across Punjab. Also, regularly hunting for innovations focusing Life Skills activities, components of SEL and values to be incorporated in Happiness Curriculum for Punjab and other programmes after prior approval from concerned officials of education system.
• Liaison and exploration of opportunities for advocating facilitation skills of teachers through trainings in Punjab.
• To liaise with Department of Education, Government of Punjab for contextualisation of Life Skills curriculum of Dream a Dream so that it could reach maximum number of children.
• Manage team and complex function. Providing direction and support to the team members within the function as and when required.
• Coordinate with and support the external stakeholders (NGOs, research agencies and Government) to build a life skills focused approach in their work.
• Provide support to the internal teams in research and M&E work as well as to build an ecosystem premised on life skills approach.
• Managing and maintaining database on key policy and advocacy issues related to different vertical of education, child and youth development, Life Skills, SEL and Thriving.

Skills 

• Should have experience and skills for the function.
• Should have considerable knowledge and possess proven technical skill.
• Strong managerial experience in terms of independently managing the function.
• Leadership and mentoring skills.
• Prior engagement with young people and experience in education, Life skills or Socio – Emotional Learning is highly recommended.
• Experience in leading team, liaison with government officials and Project management is desirable.
• Strong spoken and written communication and articulation skills. Fluency in English and Hindi is must. Knowledge of other Indian language in reference to geography of work is appreciable. In case of Punjab, knowledge of Gurumukhi will be added advantage.
• Ability to travel to different parts of country (towns and villages) at a short notice, in post Covid era.
• Excellent problem-solving and strategic thinking skills, ability to analyse complex qualitative and quantitative data, craft possible solutions and recommend actions.
• Intermediate knowledge and use of Microsoft Excel, Word and PowerPoint.

General Responsibilities 

• Contribute to achievement of strategic goals set by the organisation
• Participate in strategic planning, annual planning and budgeting process for the organisation
• Develop strategies to keep team members engaged in outreach efforts
• Being a small team, you would also be required to multi-task between roles given by your reporting manager, as and when required by the organization for the furtherance of its goals.
• Accountability of achieving the goal of the function.

EXPERIENCE

• 3 to 5 years of experience of working in development sector, majorly in Education. Hand on Life Skills & Socio-Emotional Learning will be preferred.
• Prior experience of working with Government will be an added advantage.

HOW TO APPLY 

Please email to pankaj@dreamadream.org with the job title ‘Senior Programme Associate – Systems Demonstration Punjab’ in the subject line along with the following documents attached:

• Cover letter
• Resume

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Dream a Dream is committed to upholding diversity and inclusion in our workplace and we strongly encourage people from underrepresented groups, within the organisation and outside, to apply to open positions. We embrace our employees’ differences of religion or belief, caste, race, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation gender, gender identity or expression, language differences, family or marital status, physical, mental and development abilities, social or economic class, education, work and behavioural styles, political affiliation, and other characteristics that make us unique.