WPE Community Engagement Officer

IRC Hellas seeks to restore the dignity of refugees and to enhance their physical and psychological safety through the provision of tailored and targeted response services. At the core of our approach is the IRC’s Women’s Protection and Empowerment (WPE) programming in Greece. After delivering direct WPE services from 2015 to 2017 in camps across Greece, in 2018, the IRC focused on building the capacity of government institutions, municipalities and local organisations, by delivering interdisciplinary Gender –Based Violence (GBV) trainings that focused on case management and enhancing coordination among service providers.

In September 2018, the launch of the SURVIVOR project for engaging services for refugee and migrant women survivors of GBV, brought together key state institutions, namely the General Secretariat for Family Policy and Gender Equality and ‘KETHI’ (National Research Centre for Gender Equality) with the civil society actors CRWI Diotima and IRC, Hellas to implement a joint project, They were joined by EU consortium partners in Bulgaria, in France, Italy and Germany aimed at enhancing the quality of and access to services for refugee and migrant GBV survivors in Greece and at strengthening GBV programming through transnational dialogue and sharing of GBV best practices, resources and tools in Greece and Europe.

Job Overview/Summary

Under the guidance and supervision of IRC’s Gender –Based Violence Specialist, the WPE Community Engagement Officer will coordinate with other protection actors’ staff, GBV sub -working groups, women and girls’ centers and associations and ensure that female members from the refugee and migrant communities in urban settings are identified and empowered in order to be able to represent their communities and support survivors of GBV. Finally, the WPE Community Engagement Officer will ensure proper documentation of each of the activities.

Responsibilities

• Reach out to local NGOs and women’s organizations to better understand and document the nature and extent of gender-based violence experienced by female communities in urban settings.
• Establish effective and efficient relationships with collaborating partners including subsector working groups etc. in order to identify female community members in urban setting.
• Gather ideas from different female community stakeholders/associations on ways of engaging with women in urban settings.
• Organize and conduct female focus group discussions in order to understand current community feelings, identify perceptions and experiences about services available for women and girls in urban settings.
• Empower and mobilize women in being able to identify gender inequalities, recognize the elements of discrimination and oppression, and devise collective strategies to challenge problems.
• Empower females from the community to become focal points through an ongoing engagement and training process in order to support other women in their community that are in a disadvantaged position, to increase their access to knowledge, resources, and decision-making power, link them safely with services in order to reach a level of control over their own environment.
• Link female community focal points with relevant services for women and girls in urban settings.
• Empower and support women that are the activity focal points for their community to participate in decision-making meetings, in order to influence the events that shape their lives and that of their environments
• Ensure proper documentation is achieved in each of above WPE activities.
• Any other duties assigned by the supervisor

This position reports to: Gender-Based Violence Specialist

 Coordination & Representation

• Actively develop and maintain effective working relationships with key stakeholders, including municipalities, national institutions, UN agencies, international and local NGOs, and other relevant actors.
• Regularly attend and represent the IRC in the National GBV Working Group to feed in IRC priorities from the technical unit and IRC implementing partners.

 WORK ENVIRNOMENT

Travel and other requirements: This position is based in Athens, Greece with frequent visits in Northern Greece or in other areas of operation.

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 or disability.