Community Development Officer – Innovation At Save the Children

Community Development Officer | General Santos City Officer | Fixed Term

Role Purpose:

The Community Development Officer (CDO) will actively engage key community stakeholders in making sense of the issues affecting children and their lives; this will include exploring innovative approaches in responding to problems and needs of children most affected by inequality and discrimination. S/he will primarily lead in community organizing and will work closely with the program officers to implement (and test) innovation projects.

The post holder leads in developing capacities of community stakeholders in engaging with a range of local authorities, other local non-government organizations, and duty bearers to influence policy decisions. The CDO links communities with people’s organizations or organizes community-based organizations to act collectively in influencing public governance. S/he is expected to empower communities to engage duty bearers to come up with programs and policies responsive to their needs.

As the focal lead in community development, the post holder is accountable for the budget allocated to support and stimulate the constituency supporting innovative approaches leading to government’s child sensitive policies and programs. S/he will establish community/school volunteers as an integral component in building program ownership among local stakeholders. S/he will monitor program progress based on the established indicators and will lead in demonstrating program accountability and learning in the communities.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE:

• 3 years’ experience in Community Development work with strong background in community mobilization and constituency building.
• Background in engaging policy decision-makers in child rights issues.
• Effective communication and facilitation skills demonstrated by skills and knowledge in using various tools in simplifying concepts and frameworks in communicating with a wide range of audiences related to the program including children.
• Experience in social innovation and entrepreneurship
• Knowledge of innovation methodologies including human-centered design, user experience, co-design, and lean/agile methods
• Critical thinking which is demonstrated by the ability to resolve program issues and integrate programs.
• Experience in facilitating community and child participation, use of child rights approaches, gender development and inclusion principles in development or humanitarian settings.
• Resilience to stress can tolerate working under ambiguous circumstances), high flexibility to abrupt changes and can multitask.
• Strong sense of urgency and work ethics particularly in timeliness (organizing and prioritizing) and quality in programming.
• Understands and believes in Save the Children’s mission and vision; commits to its objectives and willing to adopt Save the Children’s methodology and framework.