Consultancy at SolidarMed

[Jamii Opportunities]

Objectives of the consultancy

In order to help EdM to provide a support that is as close as possible to the needs and realities of the facilitators and the learners (adolescents and adults of the community), the consultant will contribute to the implementation of an initial assessment whose objective is to document the socio-cultural and educational contexts of the project area. The initial assessment is composed of the following two successive phases:

• the collection and summary of official and pedagogical documentation on SRH education
• the collection and analysis of representations and practices related to SRH of adolescents

Initial assessment: description of the protocol

1. Collection and summary of official and pedagogical documentation on SRH education

With the aim of better defining the prescriptive and the pedagogical environment in which the educational sessions of the programme will be inserted, a documentary inventory will be carried out and will gather information from different types of documents:

• National and ministerial prescriptions and guidelines related to SRH for adolescents in the fields of education and health (regulatory framework, etc.), pedagogical recommendations in the field of SRH education (guidelines, curriculum, contents planning, etc.).
• Review of implementation reports in terms of the introduction of SRH in schools and in community education spaces (e.g. ministerial reports; documents from local associations and organisations; international reports).
• Communication material used by MOH for Adolescent Reproductive Health (ARH) education, training guides and other material.
• Data from MOH on health education sessions and CHWs activities in the field of ARH education.

1. Collection and analysis of representations and practices related to SRH of adolescents

Collection and analysis of current representations and practices will be done using three different methods:

1. Observation of SRH education sessions

The observation of the education sessions has the objective of supporting the analysis of the following components:

• the professional practices of the facilitators
• the contents of the session and the methods used to transmit them
• the activity of the learners (adolescents and adults in the community) during the education sessions (how they are mobilized during the session, what type of interactions do they have between them and with the facilitator, etc.).
• the Information Education and Communication (IEC) material used during the sessions.

The observed SRH education sessions will be recorded (video clips).

1. Interviews with facilitators

At the end of the observations, interviews will be conducted with the facilitators of the observed sessions in order to collect their difficulties in terms of contents’ transmission, pedagogical relationship with the learners, their ways of preparing the session, etc.

1. Focus groups

The information gathered in the focus groups and interviews have the objective of providing a better understanding of the knowledge, representations and practices of the local population regarding SRH of adolescents. The idea is not to obtain detailed and in-depth analyses, but to get an overview of the phenomena that structure or the difficulties/barriers that run through the lives of adolescents in the areas of SRH.

For the focus groups, the targeted people are:

1. Adolescent girls from 10 to 14
2. Adolescent girls from 14 to 19
3. Adolescent boys from 10 to 14
4. Adolescent boys from 14 to 19
5. Adolescent mothers
6. Mothers
7. Fathers
8. Fathers and mothers
9. Adolescent boys and girls, fathers and mothers

The aim of the focus groups is to bring out local knowledge, common opinions, traditions and rituals, resistance, etc. in each targeted group.

1. Interviews

For the interviews, the targeted people are:

1. Community leaders
2. Peer educators
3. Youth leaders
4. Key local health personnel

Expected products from the consultant

The protocol described above, is a basis that can be refined according to the consultant’s knowledge of the context. Close collaboration between the consultant and the EdM specialists will be required. The list below is an estimation of what is expected (the number of sessions observed, focus groups or interviews, can be adjusted if necessary). Approximatively, we estimate that the assessment (the elaboration of the tools, the data collection and the data analysis) can take between two and three months.

1. The synthesis of the documentation with the documents attached (point 1). To carry out this phase, the consultant will have to contact resource persons in the ministries at the different levels of the systems responsible for health education sessions with the various target audiences.
2. The videos of the education sessions (point 2.1). Two sessions per each targeted session (in-school adolescents, out-of-school adolescents, adolescent mothers and leaders or other adults).
3. Each video will be completed by a brief description of the session (place, time, audience, objectives of the session, number of participants, etc.) and the list of the pedagogical resources used by the facilitators during the sessions (if possible, it would be useful to have the resource attached) (point 2.1)
4. The transcription and translation into English of key moments of the registered sessions (point 2.1).
5. The elaboration of the guides for all the interviews and focus groups. All the guides will be pre-tested on a few participants to check that the questions are correctly formulated and understood. All the guides will be reviewed by the EdM specialists (points 2, 3, 4)
6. The transcription and translation into English of key extracts from the interviews and focus groups (points 2, 3, 4)
7. The analysis of the videos, the interviews and focus groups will be done in close collaboration with the EdM specialists.

All the expected products will be shared with the technical creative team. The technical creative team consists of the two national trainers of the district, the project manager, and the specialists of Enfants du Monde.

At the end of the process, a presentation of the main results will be done by the consultant with the stakeholders.

For each expected product, templates or document structures will be proposed to facilitate the presentation of the data.

Conditions of implementation

The consultant will work with the creative technical team and under the supervision of the project manager and the country director of SolidarMed.

Expected profile

• Degree:
  • Preferably a degree in social sciences (like anthropologist or sociologist) or health studies
  • Ideally Master’s degree
  • Knowledge in education to SRH and its issues
• Experience
  • Experience in data collection (must have an experience in qualitative research based on interviews or focus groups).
  • Working experience with the national institutions in charge of SRH or health education in the school system in Tanzania or in the project region
  • Good knowledge of the region of the project
• Languages
  • English + Kiswahili
• Skills required
  • Mastery of social survey techniques:
    • Analysis and synthesis of documents
    • Preparation and conduct of interviews
    • Observation of professional/educational situations
  • Writing and analytic skills in English

How to apply

Interested and qualified candidates should submit their application to consultancy.tanzania@edm.ch citing reference Consultancy – AHA! Project and include:

• Your CV maximum three pages with three referees.
• A maximum one pager covering letter outlining your motivation.

Deadline for submission of application is Friday 20th May 2022. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

 

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