Job Description
ASDJF
Position Title
Duration
Location
Reporting
(Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum Term of Reference
Project Officer/Project Coordinator
06 months
Based in Colombo and frequent travel to the project location in Kandy and Ampara
Program Manager
About SDJF
Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF) has about 12 years of extensive experience in working with Youth, Civil society organizations, Women's organizations, academia and policy reformists, through a unique approach and theory of change. SDJF has reached the pinnacle of advocating for diverse, just, equal and gender-sensitive media through its educational initiatives. Using innovative and state of the art communication strategies and communication plans, SDJF has proven itself to be in the lead in promoting development, peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka. It has proven time and time again that media has the power for positive social transformation if steered with steady and trustworthy hands. Registered as Lanka Development Journalist Forum, SDJF is a non-governmental and national level organization that has been in operation since 2009. SDJF employs a variety of media tools and has institutionalized development communication principles to address voice poverty in the communities in Sri Lanka. A well-established media-based organization, LDJF operates with extensive experience in steering media towards democratization and social transformation process. SDJF works closely with local media organizations, international media development agencies, civil society organizations, institutes of higher education, youth and women development movements and other organizations that promote democracy and pluralism towards building inclusive societies.
About the Project EMPOWER
Empowering Youth led Initiatives in Prevention of Violent Extremism (PVE) in Sri Lanka (EMPOWER) Project implemented by Helvetas with the funding assistance from Global Community Engagement for Resilience Fund (GCERF). Under this project, SDJF has been selected as one of the sub-grantees to implement a project in Ampara, Colombo and Kandy districts titled "Building Resilience Against Violent Extremism amongst public school students via youth-led Initiatives and artistic expressions" to implement for the next 10 months.
The overall objective of the project is to enhance the awareness of school students from different ethnicities in Ampara, Kandy and Colombo on Prevention of Violent Extremism (PVE) via the youth-led movement, One Voice Association (OVA), through capacity building programs, awareness campaigns and the use of new media and artistic expressions, such as art and digital drama.
The specific objectives of the project are:
(i) Strengthen the institutional capacity of the youth-led movement - One Voice Association (OVA) as an institution and civil society movement that promotes ethnic harmony.
(ii) Enhance school youth awareness on Prevention of Violent Extremism (PVE) through capacity building programs, digital drama screenings and social media campaigns.
Result 1 - As an outcome of the strengthening activities of One Voice Association (OVA), the movement shall receive registration as a civil society movement with the development of a constitution. Additionally, the members of Ova will produce 15 impactful digital drama stories on PVE and ethnic harmony.
Result 2 - As an outcome of enhancing youth awareness on PVE, 600 school students will be capacitated on the concepts of pluralism and co-existence, countering hate speech and disinformation, resilience and conflict resolution skills. As a result of the capacity building programs, 100 artistic expressions on PVE and ethnic harmony will be produced by the school students.
The proposed action falls under the purview of the prevention of violent extremism (PVE), hate speech and serves as a tool to counter misinformation related to religion and ethnicity by way of new media.
1. Job description
The project officer/Project coordinator shall be responsible for the day to day management of project implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and reporting the project activities to the Program Manager at LDJF.
1.1. Overall responsibility
The project officer/Coordinator is responsible for;
- Project management - Planning, Implementation and Overseeing, reporting the project activities based on the approved action plan, monitoring and evaluation plan and budget.
- Knowledge management and documentation of the project: Develop a tool to capture the lessons learned, best practices, challenges and mitigation throughout the implementation.
- Financial oversight and management: In consultation with the accounts officer, follow up the budget spending on a monthly basis.
- Media relations and social media audience engagement: Responsible for designing and engaging audiences through social media campaigns and project visibility.
1.2. Specific responsibilities and tasks
- Planning, implementation, overseeing and reporting the activity according to the project document, action plan, monitoring, evaluation plan and Budget
- Develop a monthly action plan based on the approved project action plan and project document and transform them into weekly and daily task lists.
- Develop a selection criterion for the beneficiaries and select 30 OVA members for the project.
- Develop a selection criterion for trainers/resource persons including their term of reference and in coordination with finance call for solicitation and support to select suitable candidates for the program.
- Conduct all field activities, trainings, workshops, dialogues as per the project document and action plan.
- Organize digital drama performances in each project field location as per the project document and action plan.
- Responsible for the preparation of weekly, monthly and quarterly project progress reports according to the project agreement.
- Responsible for the preparation of event reports separately for each event using the format provided by the donor.
- Coordinate and maintain a good working relationship with state universities and focal points.
- Work with the Program Manager and manage the budget related to the project.
2. Knowledge management and documentation of project
Be responsible for the project knowledge management and documentation such as trainer evaluation, summary event sheets, master-sheet, etc
- Be responsible for the pre/post evaluation and analysis of the results of all training program
- Maintain a complete database of trained students and related project documents online and offline.
- Record good practices and lessons learnt separately, under this project.
- Safe storage and accessibility of documents.
3. Financial oversight and management
- Be responsible for project overall budget management
- Be responsible for process advance payment and settle as per advance policy of the organization.
- Conduct and review monthly budget Follow up
4. Media relations and social media audience engagement
- Take a lead in promoting project activities with mainstream and social media.
- Maintain a healthy relationship with the media community and editors.
- Write a pre/post press releases and publish articles through the SDJF website and mainstream media and keep a record of them.
- Responsible for writing the "Snapshot" of any project event on the same day.
- Responsible for digital campaigns.
Administrative Support: Project Officer/Coordinator will provide inputs and extend support to finalize for approval, all administrative documents such as MoUs, ToRs, Sub-grant Agreements, Service Agreements, etc.
Any other tasks assigned by the Program Director.
5. Qualification and experiences
- Bachelor's degree in Social Sciences, Development Communication, Mass Media, Journalism,
- Law, Management or any other related field.
- Five years' experience in a similar role in the non-governmental sector.
- Knowledge on Prevention of Violence Extremism (PVE) & youth engagement.
- Working experience with state universities are considered as an added advantage
- Excellent language skills in English and Sinhala or Tamil.
- Computer skills in MS Office package and statistical software.
- Outstanding communication and interpersonal skills.
- Proven organizational skills and the ability to manage multiple tasks with a high degree of accuracy and attention to detail, including the ability to prioritize
- Sound knowledge and experience in using social media to engage online audiences
- Ability to plan strategically and creatively to meet specified objectives with strong ability to anticipate challenges and generate solutions
- Professionalism in written correspondence and report writing, excellent presentation and oral communication skills
- Strong work ethics, ability to work in a multicultural environment and travel outside Colombo.
6. Salary and Compensation
Based on the past salary history, qualification and experience of the candidate.
7. Commencement - Immediately
How to apply:
Interested candidates should send their recent CV along with a motivation letter to [email protected] on or before 26th April 2024. Please indicate "Application for the post of Project Officer" in the subject line of the email. Women are encouraged to apply. Only short-listed candidates will be notified.
