Social Behaviour Change Officer

Details

Mission and objectives

Guided by the 2030 Agenda principle of “leaving no one behind”, UNICEF Rwanda under the current country programme will contribute to five priorities under the social transformation pillar of the National Strategy for Transformation 2017–2024: (a) Ensuring access to quality health for all; (b) Reducing malnutrition; (c) Ensuring access to and improving the quality of education; (d) Moving towards a modern Rwandan household, and; (e) Enhancing graduation from poverty and promoting resilience. The country programme will be implemented as part of the United Nations Development Assistance Plan 2018–2023 (UNDAP II), specifically contributing to Strategic Result Area 2: Social Transformation.

Context

UNICEF began its development work in Rwanda in 1986. After the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, UNICEF's assistance focused on emergency, recovery, and small-scale projects. In 2007-2008, UNICEF's work in Rwanda shifted to large scale projects and national policy support to key government priority areas. The 2018-2023 UNICEF Rwanda Country Programme continues to support the realization of the rights of every child, especially the most disadvantaged. The programme focuses on seven priority areas: child health, including HIV prevention; nutrition; early childhood development; education; child protection; water, sanitation, and hygiene; and social policy and research. Parenting is a fundamental aspect of child development, significantly influencing a child's well-being and future. Recognizing the importance of supporting parents and caregivers, comprehensive 8 parenting guides have been developed by the government of Rwanda with technical and financial support from UNICEF. This United Nations Volunteers (UNV) assignment is part of UNICEF Rwanda Country Office’s parenting education programming initiative. The position will enhance utilization, accessibility, and engagement of the parenting guides implementation and social and behaviour change involvement in strategic intent to disseminate guides through existing community engagement and social mobilization platforms including and integrating them into user-friendly platforms.

Task description

The UNV for SBC (integrated parenting) will be engaged in various tasks to support and promote effective parenting practices in UNICEF Rwanda Country Office and key partners both government and civil society organizations. The following tasks will be initially prioritized: I. Needs Assessment: facilitate to conduct surveys and interviews to assess the parenting education needs within the community and proper use of the parenting guides developed by the National Childhood Development Agency (NCDA) and identify specific challenges and gaps in parenting knowledge and skills. ii.Develop Educational Materials: participate in creation in culturally sensitive and age-appropriate parenting education materials such as Development of the pamphlets, brochures, and multimedia resources to disseminate parenting information. iii.Training Programs: participate and facilitate the organization of the parenting workshops and training sessions at National and sub-national level and collaborate with local experts to ensure the content is relevant and applicable to the Rwandan community. iv. Community Outreach: in collaboration with the key stakeholders in parenting education, engage with local communities to raise awareness about the importance of parenting education, co-organize community events, fairs, or seminars to promote parenting knowledge at national and sub-national levels. Ensure feedback mechanisms are tailored out to capture the insights from the community. v.Partnership Building: Establish partnerships with local NGOs, government agencies, and academia institutions to enhance the reach and impact of parenting education initiatives throughout Rwanda and ensure knowledge management of the SBC parenting education. Vi. Online Platforms: Contribute to co-creation workshop to develop and ensure the parenting contents maintenance in existing online platforms or social media channels to share parenting tips, resources, and engage with a wider audience. The key partners may include but not limited to the RBA, NCDA, Imbuto foundation, Umuhuza and other relevant organization. vii.Monitoring and Evaluation: establish metrics to assess the effectiveness of parenting education programs. Collect and analyze data to measure the impact and identify areas for improvement from the parenting education contents in different platforms such as Itetero program, and different relevant campaigns (#OneEggPerchildEveryday campaign, national events, child online protection, etc.) viii.Research and Best Practices: Stay updated on the latest research and best practices in parenting education and share relevant findings with stakeholders to continually improve program content. ix.Other tasks: Contribute on demand to the other Social and behaviour change activities related to the positive parenting educations.