Jobs

Africa Regional Organizer / Coordinator - GROOTS International/Groots Africa

2008-05-01, Issue 367

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/47803

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GROOTS International/Groots Africa and the Huairou Commission are seeking an Africa Regional Organizer / Coordinator, based in Nairobi, Kenya, to support members of GROOTS and the Huairou Commission in the region to facilitate grassroots women’s effective participation in our networks and programs. The African Regional Organizer will work to fulfill GROOTS’ goals, and will work with a team based in Africa and New York to coordinate the Huairou Commission’s Women’s Land Link Africa (WLLA) joint regional partnership project.

GROOTS International/Groots Africa and the Huairou Commission are seeking an Africa Regional Organizer / Coordinator, based in Nairobi, Kenya, to support members of GROOTS and the Huairou Commission in the region to facilitate grassroots women’s effective participation in our networks and programs. The African Regional Organizer will work to fulfill GROOTS’ goals, and will work with a team based in Africa and New York to coordinate the Huairou Commission’s Women’s Land Link Africa (WLLA) joint regional partnership project. The next one year plan for GROOTS Africa focuses on identifying and building the capacity of 20 grassroots women leaders in 6 current member countries who can work with professional partners to forge national and regional networks of grassroots women. We are seeking a Regional Organizer who will work closely with GROOTS member organizations in Africa, supporting them to organize and solidify the movement.

This will include:
surfacing and building the capacities of grassroots women leaders;
facilitating their effective participation in development;
and supporting the creation of national networks.

This will require the Regional Organizer to communicate with national coordinators on an on-going basis to assist with expansion and strengthening of the national networks through long-term strategic thinking and planning, and will support the implementation of one-year strategic plans in each country. The organizer will also link these groups to each other, facilitating sharing of information, lessons learned and successful strategies. Concurrently with supporting this network and movement-building, the Organizer will work to support country-level initiatives to support and strengthen women’s land rights at the community level. These initiatives are taking part within the Women’s Land Link Africa (WLLA) initiative (see below for more).

The position will also require some administrative functions, including communication with existing WLLA partners; development of plans of action as a regional network in conjunction with existing and new WLLA partners; outreach to others on the WLLA Project; organizing of events, including exchanges of groups; and direct assistance to partners on a variety of tasks. A variety of administrative tasks such as budget oversight and some fundraising will also be required, though support may be available from GROOTS/Huairou Commission staff members. Requirements The chosen candidate should demonstrate several years of successful experience organizing and/or coordinating grassroots women’s groups (networks, etc) that focus on improving their lives and communities. Capacity to take strong leadership, and work with diverse groups and individuals is essential as are strong communication skills (oral, email, basic reports). She should also have motivational skills, and be able to orient members and potential members to the mission, values and goals of GROOTS and the Huairou Commission. Knowledge of women’s housing and land rights in the region is essential.

Additional qualifications:
.Dedication to supporting grassroots women and the development processes they are leading, including those related to land and property rights.
·Focus at the grassroots level and on amplifying the voices of grassroots women;
·Competent and conversant with the issues most central to the themes our members are working on – primarily Land and Housing, Governance and HIV/AIDS;
·Ability & willingness to travel (including site visits, meetings, exchanges);
·Ability to think and write in a critical and articulate manner;
·Ability to communicate in multiple languages (French and English) a plus;
·Ability to analyze reports;
·Experience with grant-writing and fundraising;
·Fiscal knowledge & ability to organize budgets and reports;
.Ability to collect and process data/statistics.

The organizer will be supervised by a regional coordinator based in Nairobi, and will also work closely with the global offices of GROOTS International and the Huairou Commission (in New York). Full time Salary $15,000 per year based on 3-month contracts An additional budget will be available for regional/international transport and communication To Apply:

Interested persons should contact:
Esther Mwaura-Muiru
Waiyai_esther@yahoo.com
254-20-271-8977 Via email copy:
and
Shannon.Hayes@huairou.org
Nicole.Ganzekaufer@huairou.org

Background: The Organizations GROOTS International GROOTS International is a network of grassroots women’s organizations working for the development of their communities. In Africa, GROOTS member organizations have been building a unique, values-based network over the past five years, focused on supporting and documenting effective grassroots-driven strategies, linking grassroots women’s organizations to each other for peer learning, and bringing grassroots women’s priorities and practices into policy-making venues at the local, national and international levels. GROOTS network members have focused on fostering grassroots women’s participation in local governance/decision making, organizing home-based care workers for recognition of their contributions in the fight against HIV AIDS, and supporting women’s groups to secure women and children’s control over land and property amidst the HIV-AIDS pandemic.

GROOTS International is a founding member (and the host network) of the Huairou Commission. Please see: www.groots.org The Huairou Commission, established in 1995 at the 4th World Conference on Women, is a global coalition of networks, institutions and individual professionals that links grassroots women’s community development organizations to partners for access to resources, information sharing and political spaces. The Huairou Commission is a collaboration among development professionals and locally focused women’s networks that aims to highlight and upscale the effective local development approaches of grassroots women’s groups and to establish development policies and programs that foster their replication. www.huairou.org The Huairou Commission’s Land and Housing Campaign: Women’s Land Link Africa (WLLA) Joint Regional Partnership Project The Huairou Commission is seeking a Regional Organizer / Coordinator of the Women’s Land Link Africa Joint Regional Partnership Project. WLLA was founded on the principal that organizations and others who are working to to improve the situation for women’s land and housing rights in Africa should link in complementary ways to strengthen existing efforts. As a partnership project, the Huairou Commission has been playing the key role of linking and highlighting in particular the innovations at the grassroots which lead to concrete improvements in the lives of community women. The WLLA provides information gathering and dissemination and facilitates knowledge exchange between grassroots organizations and others. As a partnership project, the WLLA enhances these efforts by providing a direct link to international and regional arenas and mechanisms that may otherwise be difficult to access for women’s organizations in the Africa region.

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