Jordan: Senior Protection Assistant

A. Organizational Context/ Background

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors. UN Women is also increasing its engagement in humanitarian response through interagency collaboration.

In the framework of the Syrian humanitarian response in Jordan, UN Women works at multiple levels to respond to the specific needs of Syrian women refugees and communities for livelihood support, building on their own initiatives and skills as well as addressing vulnerabilities as identified by themselves in their women centers. UN Women is implementing a multi-sectorial protection and support project in Za’atari and Azraq Refugee Camps through the creation of Women and Girls ‘safe spaces’ called Oasis. The overall goal of the project is to empower vulnerable Syrian women refugees through increased access to self-reliance opportunities and meaningful engagement in community life to put in place the foundational cornerstones for increased self-reliance and durable solutions for the ‘day after’ in Syria.

The project pursues the following specific objectives: a) Create and sustain access to self-reliance opportunities for Syrian women refugees through cash for work activities b) Build a conducive environment for increasing Syrian women refugees’ active participation in decision making processes in the camp including meaningful engagement in community mobilizations efforts; c) Increase awareness on women rights and responsibilities for an inclusive, equitable and peaceful society through training, enhancement of life skills and other social cohesion approaches; this includes addressing prevention and response to sexual and gender based violence through awareness raising, trainings, and referrals to service providers of psychosocial, health, and legal services as appropriate.

To support these objectives, UN Women is seeking a Senior Protection Assistant who will serve as a member of the Response, Recovery and Resilience Team within the UN Women Country Office and will be responsible for supporting the team’s work in the area of Protection.

B. Functions / Key Results Expected:

1.Support protection related interventions as they relate to UN Women’s livelihoods engagement. This includes:

· Integrate psycho social support activities into the Oasis C4W program, including establishing mechanisms for beneficiaries that prevent and mitigate the incidence of SGBV (establishing and facilitating groups, activities, awareness raising sessions);

· Explore opportunities for supporting case management, psycho social support intervention and trauma counselling to the UN Women program participants;

· Maintain confidential case files and refer to appropriate service providers where relevant;

· Regularly monitor the psycho social needs of the beneficiaries;

· Provide technical assistance, guidance and support to UN Women camp personnel on Protection issues, including capacity building on principles of psychological first aid and SGBV;

· Support partners in the integration of SGBV principles in livelihoods work, including building early warning systems for increased household violence and linking partners to service providers and referral networks;

· Support stakeholders in mainstreaming gender equality at all levels - in legislation, in developing policies and during the planning and implementation of their activities on the ground, and to ensure women participation at all levels;

· Document and provide update regularly on trend analysis, best practice and research on protection principles and programming;

· Represent UN Women’s at coordination meetings such as the Protection, SGBV, Child Protection…etc.;

· Liaise with UNHCR on camp related protection issues and referrals;

· Update the protection database regularly;

· Develop an implementation plan for the targeted deliverables of the Protection component and Lead the plan to ensure that the psycho social needs of the beneficiaries are addressed through trauma counselling, psychosocial support and other means of direct intervention;

· Design and establish support mechanisms to address and respond to SGBV and protection concerns of the beneficiaries (women’s groups, individual support, establishing committees;

· Coordinate and support the implementation partner(s) to implement specific components, especially related to GBV and Protection;

· Update and implement a comprehensive referral tool for cases in Oasis and ensure regular follow up, monitoring and case closures;

· Provide information to beneficiaries about other support mechanism available in the camps;

· Offer fortnightly updates on protection and non-protection related referral cases.

2.Support to partner capacity development on issues of gender equality and women’s rights – ensuring that partner interventions equally address the needs of women men, girls and boys, and promote empowerment. This includes:

· Develop and maintain up to date training materials – in Arabic – to be used for trainings on gender equality mainstreaming for humanitarian and development partners;

· Provide quarterly trainings to partners and/or ad hoc as requested;

· Provide technical assistance on issues of gender equality and humanitarian action/development programming as required.

3.Support UN Women’s refugees and host communities’ related knowledge and communication production. This includes:

· Support research and data analysis – including the production of in-house knowledge products on protection, SGBV and refugee related issues;

· Support to document programme learning, policy research and analysis;

· Support to undertake events.

4.General project support:

· Contribute to the day to day operational and administrative tasks of the Oasis based on delegation of roles /responsibilities;

· Coordinate, liaise and offer operation support with identified implementing partners (responsible parties) to implement the relevant project component in the Oasis;

· Ensure internal synergy between the different components by actively participating in the regular weekly meetings and on spot information sharing and referrals;

· Participate in relevant trainings and workshops as required;

· Any other activities in support to the Recovery Specialist.

C. Competencies:

Core Competencies:

q Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values, ethical standards and the UN system in Humanitarian Action & promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN WOMEN;

q Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability

q Treats all people fairly without favoritism;

q Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;

q Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities;

q Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure;

q Ability to build strong relationships with clients, focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback.

Functional Competencies:

q Ability to mentor and proven conflict resolution skills;

q Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills;

q Proven networking, team-building, organizational and communication skills;

q Ability to work in a multi-cultural and multi-national environment;

q Integrity, flexible approaches to work coupled with enthusiasm, commitment and energy;

q Ability to work under minimal supervision and be proactive and initiative;

q Excellent organizational and planning skills;

q Adequate knowledge and experience of administrative and record keeping.

D. Qualifications Require:

Education:

University degree in Social Work, Psychology, or other related field. Advanced degree preferred.

Experience:

-Minimum 5-7 years of experience at the national or international level with a NGO in the protection of women and girls in a protracted humanitarian crisis;

• Experience and skills in the provision of psycho social support, counselling and case management;

• Experience and commitment to gender equality, women’s rights, sexual and gender based violence and human rights within a transition and refugee camps setting, especially those at risk including female headed households, women with disability.;

• Confirmed knowledge of existing standards in Protection such as the IASC Gender-based Violence Guidelines in Humanitarian Intervention;

• Understanding of how to apply the principles of gender equality and women and girl’s empowerment in humanitarian response;

• Excellent knowledge of refugee protection issues;

• Prior working experience with the UN will be highly considered; Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc).

Language:

Fluency in Arabic and English is required.

To Apply please follow the link:
https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?cur_job_id=70010