Job Title: Senior Project Coordinator, Education

Job Description

The IRC’s Education Technical Unit leads the organization’s education programming and policy work in 25 countries around the globe.  
 
COVID-19 and the resulting health risks, economic hardships and school closures are overwhelming families around the world. Countries worldwide have closed public schools to prevent the spread of the disease. As of mid-May     2020,  a total of 1.2 billion students – almost 70% of all schoolchildren – were out of school for the foreseeable future.  Children who are unable to access the predictable, supportive routines of school not only miss opportunities to learn and build social-emotional skills, they are less likely to re-enroll when schools reopen and more likely to remain out of school forever. Research shows that learning through play is not only vital for children’s healthy cognitive and emotional development but also can help build their resilience in coping with stress and adversity. The IRC’s world-class educational content designed for crisis settings, and teams of thousands of education experts in 20 countries are poised to disseminate life-saving messages and support children’s and caregivers’ learning and wellbeing during this crisis.
 
While there is a proliferation of learning and parent support in high-resource communities in the US and Europe, there are several critical gaps in crisis affected contexts: (1) remote learning and support content for communities with limited internet connectivity, and in many languages and cultural contexts; and (2) easy to use, modular content for caregivers to support their and their children’s social-emotional wellbeing.
 
In response, the IRC has launched a new multi-country initiative to design and deliver play-based social-emotional learning through a combination of in person and mass media approaches to children and families; as well as tips and support to parents through mobile or, if safe, in-person delivery platforms.  
 
Job Overview/Summary
 
The Project Coordinator role is responsible for project planning and tracking, coordination of internal and external stakeholders and carrying out administrative tasks associated with this new initiative.  This is a challenging position which requires strong organization skills, excellent interpersonal skills, and the ability to work well in a distributed, multicultural environment.  The initiative is beginning immediately and will continue for at least 18 months.  The Project Coordinator will manage tasks, inputs and processes associated with the design and execution of the audio strategy.  
 
The role reports into Regional Deputy Director   and will be focused on supporting a technical team and country programs initiating play based learning programming.
 
Major Responsibilities: 
 
• Project planning and management: Complete project planning and scheduling, from the high-level planning phase to detailed short-term activity scheduling.  Initiate and complete planning and scheduling for global-level implementation period activities. 
 
o In the first 2-3 months, coordinate inputs and processes from and involving field and regional staff, technical unit and research & innovation (R&I) staff to finalize  the project strategy, work plans, budgets, and MEL plans
o Drive initiative’s progress and coordinate the activities of cross-functional team members, including task and action tracking.
o Support staff from 3 country programs, to ensure that dependencies, conflicts and risks are coordinated and managed across the initiative. 
o Support the country and regional/HQ project teams in their use of tools for documents management, collaboration and task management.
 
• Contracting and partner management: Support identification and contracting, including managing RFP processes as needed, for script writers, talent, designers, producers and others required to design and deliver play based programming across multiple contexts.  
• Support grants coordinator in HQ (goat) and country offices  to manage inception period budgets, track expenditure and maintain accurate projections.
• Project Communications: Ensure that project communications are timely, relevant and accurate, including regular status updates.
• Facilitate meetings with stakeholders across globally distributed business units, and coordinate stakeholder communications.
• Support an advisory committee of key decision makers at regional, country and education technical unit to track progress, provide support,  and give input into key decisions.
 
Job Requirements
 
Minimum Requirements
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent with at least 4 years of progressive experience as a project coordinator or project manager 
• Possess, and apply a sound understanding of a body of knowledge gained through experience (6-8 years); utilize in-depth knowledge to achieve stated results.
• Excellent speaking, writing and facilitation skills in English; proficiency in French, Spanish or Arabic.  
• Fluency or, ideally, experience working with technologies used for mass messaging, broadcast radio production and distribution/or other audio production and distribution.  
• Experience in project managing large-scale, cross-functional projects
• Experience in establishing or facilitating governance processes
• Experience in using project management methodologies, templates, tools and processes
• Strong remote facilitation skills; and fluency with various digital communications and design platforms 
• High level of proficiency with MS Office, documents management solutions and project management tools
 
Preferred Additional Requirements
• Knowledge of the education in emergencies sector 
• Experience working in crisis-affected settings 
• Budget management and reporting 
Working Environment:  
• Remote/ work; ability to work EDT or UTC time zone
 
Professional Standards : The IRC and IRC workers adhere to the values and principles outlined in the IRC Way – Code of Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Equality, and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Harassment-Free Workplace, Fiscal Integrity, Anti-Retaliation, Combating Trafficking in Persons and several others.
 
IRC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
 
Gender Equality: IRC is committed to narrowing the gender gap in leadership positions. We offer benefits that provide an enabling environment for women to participate in our workforce including parental leave, gender-sensitive security protocols and other supportive benefits and allowances.

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