Community Engagement Officer

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is a non-governmental, humanitarian organization with 60 years of experience in helping to create a safer and more dignified life for refugees and internally displaced people. NRC advocates for the rights of displaced populations and offers assistance within the shelter, education, emergency food security, legal assistance, and water,sanitation and hygiene sectors. The Norwegian Refugee Council has approximately 5000 committed and competent employees involved in projects across four continents. In addition, NRC runs one of the world's largest standby rosters -NORCAP, with 650 professionals, ready to be deployed on 72 hours notice when a crisis occurs.

We are looking for Community Engagement Officer in our office in Kramatorsk, Ukraine.

Job description:

• Adherence to NRC policies, guidance and procedures; 
• Ensure community engagement takes priority in all shelter related programming, from assessment through completion of works; 
• Ensure that projects target beneficiaries most in need of protection, explore and asses new and better ways to assist; 
• Contribute to specific protection risks and needs analyses; 
• Coordinate with local authorities, community groups and all stakeholders and institutions; to ensure full support and transparency within the communities in which we work; 
• In new areas of operation, contribute towards the NRC Ukraine strategy; 
• Promote a community, beneficiary, tenant or owner driven approach to programming in all activities; look for ways to innovate using cash based programming and cash for work as a modality wherever possible; 
• Promote and share ideas for improvement and necessary changes in the activities; 
• Provide training to relevant stakeholders; 
• Ensure proper filing and scanning of all documents, according NRC policies and procedures. 
• Ensure the inclusion of the most vulnerable through the effective design and implementation of the process to identify, monitor and review vulnerable communities and assess their capacities, vulnerabilities with special attention to DRR, gender, violence prevention, human rights and land rights (i.e. networking with other actors working in the area, exploring referral mechanisms, forming working relationships with local authorities, etc). 
• Identify and assess community groups' and individual's needs in the field, linked to the local authorities' or communities' own capacities, in order to draw up and determine NRC's humanitarian specific needs based, assistance to be tailored; 
• Ensure proper sensitisation, informing the community about the planned activities, the criteria for, and selection of beneficiaries, processes, etc. 
• Ensure understanding within the areas NRC operates of the feedback mechanism, and work with M&E and the PMs to reach those who have lodged complaints, or filter them to the right technical persons' 
• Develop community mobilisation and facilitation mechanisms for community representation, and involvement in planning and implementation, field assessments, data entry and analysis. 
• Liaise with local government/community to advocate for community involvement in all relevant activities and to obtain required permissions for project implementation (link to ICLA); 
• Represent the shelter department in meetings with local authorities, community groups and "town hall" style meetings; 
• Act as focal point, or the "voice" for the Shelter department within the community, and vice versa-be an informal measure of community acceptance of NRC programming and feedback; 
• Ensure reconciliation report of beneficiaries and activities prepared and updated
  

Qualifications:

• Experience as a social worker and/or technician with distribution of emergency humanitarian assistance 
• Good working knowledge of the mandates and modalities of the international humanitarian sector including the UN cluster system 
• Extensive experience working in relief operations in challenging environments 
• Excellent interpersonal and networking skills and the ability to liaise authoritatively with figures from the humanitarian community, local media, local government and army, and other relevant actors, when required 
• Excellent communication and reporting skills, both written and oral 
• Willingness to work in demanding, stressful situations under difficult living conditions with respect for basic security rules 
• Knowledge of the context in Ukraine mandatory 
• Experience with start-up of humanitarian or related programmes is an asset 
• Solid understanding and experience of crisis contexts and working in complex emergencies 
• Fluency in spoken Russian or Ukrainian.

Education level:

• College / University, Bachelor's degree

Personal qualities:

• Ability to work with diplomacy, tact and sensitivity and experience in working within different cultural contexts requiring cultural sensitivity 
• Handling insecure environments 
• Managing resources to optimize results 
• Empowering and building trust 
• Managing performance and development 
• Planning and delivering results

We offer:

Contract period: till the end 2019 contingent upon availability of funds 

Salary/benefits: According to NRC country policy, medical insurance, training opportunities 

Duty station: Kramatorsk, Donetsk oblast, Ukraine

Miscellaneous info:

• Travel: Approx. 150 days travel

Please note that we will contact only with shortlisted candidates.

The deadline for application is 08.09.2019