Child Welfare Interns Needed

Established in 1984 in the UK, Islamic Relief is an international NGO seeking to promote sustainable economic and social development by working with local communities through relief and development activities regardless of race, color and religion, and without expecting anything in return

IR started operations in Kenya in 1993 on orphan’s sponsorship program through a local CBO in Mandera District, Northern Kenya. It opened its fully fledged office in March in 2006 at the height of drought in the Horn of Africa. Since then, IR has been providing humanitarian and development assistance to vulnerable communities. Over these years it has implemented various development and relief activities in Mandera. This has remarkably changed the lives of the vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. In January 2010, IRK extended its operation to Wajir County, neighboring Mandera, in January 2012 expanded to Garissa and Dadaab, and in October 2017 opened a program office in Kilifi County.

Islamic Relief Kenya is currently focusing on three major themes: Sustainable Community Empowerment, Food security and livelihoods, Disaster Risk reduction (DRR); and Inclusive and protection

The orphan families economic strengthening Project is an economic empowerment project that will be implemented using evidence- based best practices and it will focus on 500 orphans and their households for financial inclusion. The project envisions to transform these ultra-poor households from local communities through provision of seed money to start small businesses scale and create alternative economic opportunity that will elevate them from poverty index. The project will target the existing beneficiaries under Orphan Sponsorship Program (OSP) by forming a vibrant beneficiary’s self-help groups and training them on entrepreneurship skills and supporting them with capital to back-up their business ideas.

Islamic Relief Kenya in pursuit to support and strengthen its operations, seeks to employ motivated, hardworking, and pro-active individuals to fill in the following position.

Title: Child welfare Interns/Volunteers x3 (Garissa 1, Mandera 1 and Nairobi 1)

Overall Responsibility

Under the supervision of the child welfare officer the intern will be responsible for assisting in the implementation of child welfare activities in Mandera County working with a dynamic team in the field he/she will ensure that core commitments to children are upheld in accordance with policies and procedures established by the Islamic Relief and other international Laws protecting children from harm and abuse.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Mobilize the orphan beneficiaries during payments, and collection of annual progress reports.
• Assist in development and timely submission of the orphan progress report.
• Support in facilitating orphans’ quarterly payments and passing extra gifts to orphans.
• Document and share success stories/case studies on quarterly basis.
• Conduct routine orphan family visits to check and monitor children’s education progress.
• Assist to collect photos for the baseline data for orphan bio data, progress reports and other periodic reports.
• Facilitate account opening for newly sponsored orphans.
• Prepare and share orphan family visits reports.
• Maintain sponsored Orphans record in both hard and soft copies.
• Assist in the identification, registration of new orphans fitting IRK sponsorship criteria.
• Compile orphans’ drawings\letter scan and share with the respective donors.
• Conduct child protection sensitization during the orphan home visits.
• Deliver health and nutrition sensitization messages to orphan families.
• Assist in linking older orphans and guardians to polytechnic for acquiring life skills.
• Perform other related duties as may be required from time to time.

Qualification and Experience

• Diploma in social sciences or development studies. Project management, Business management, sociology, and other related fields
• Knowledge of Community Development, Skills in documentation community Facilitation networking and partnership skills
• Holds personal values ethics and attitudes which are in line with principles or values of child protection
• Project Management skills /Report writing are added advantage
• Good interpersonal relationship, conflict Management skills
• Fluency in spoken and written English, knowledge of the local languages is an added advantage.
• Proficiency in computer applications especially MS word, MS excel, MS Access Power point
• Ability to work on your own initiative as well as a part of a team.

Competencies/Skills

• Good communication and presentation skills.
• Passion for work and Honesty
• Ability to quickly learn new systems, processes, and procedures.
• Ability to work under pressure and meet strict project deadlines.
• Team player.
• Ability to identify and solve problems.
• Able to work effectively in a multi-cultural environment