Communications Intern

Background

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.  UN Women supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality, and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programmes and services needed to implement these standards. It stands behind women’s equal participation in all aspects of life, focusing on five priority areas; increasing women’s leadership and participation; ending violence against women; engaging women in all aspects of peace and security processes; enhancing women’s economic empowerment; and making gender equality central to national development planning and budgeting. UN Women also coordinates and promotes the UN system’s work in advancing gender equality.

UN Women’s coordination function and field operations support the implementation of international and regional norms and standards, while also informing the development of those norms and standards with country-level realities, through policy advocacy, knowledge generation and strategic plan and strengthen UN Women’s comparative advantage in country-level advocacy, including by supporting the integration of gender equality issues in all development sectors.

Purpose of Internship:

This internship is expected to build and support the efforts of UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in advocacy and outreach. It is expected that the communications intern will help UN Women Regional Office obtain enhanced advocacy visibility, thus strengthening organization’s credibility and brand as a lead agency to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women through positive transformation of social norms, attitudes and behaviors.

The purpose of this internship is to support planning and executing communications tasks to share and promote information on thematic areas of UN Women, research and data, workshops and events, and programmatic results. The intern will receive overall supervision from the Regional Communications Specialist.

Duties and Responsibilities

Communications and Documentation:

• Support the rolling out of a communications strategy for the UN Women Asia and the Pacific to increase its visibility and public engagement in alignment with the Beijing+25: Generation Equality Campaign;

• Support the maintenance of the regional online outreach and liaise with Communications Offices in production of corporate information materials including those of UN Women programmes;
• Support the team to write and monitor stories on gender-related issues and events to promote UN Women programme activities from the Asia-Pacific region;
• Provide technical and communication-oriented support to UN Women teams and country offices in promoting stories and events on website and social media as well as UN Women thematic days days such as UN Day (24 Oct), International day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (25 November), Human Rights Day (10 December), the 16 Days of Activism, and International Women’s Day;
• Support video editing, video interviews and video documentation of meetings and beneficiaries for dissemination on web and YouTube as well as other social media platform;
• Review and edit, from a communications perspective, submitted knowledge products such as narrative reports, research reports, evaluation reports, videos and etc.;
• Assist in regular managing and monitoring UN Women Asia and the Pacific website and social media accounts.

Deliverables:

• Communications strategy for UN Women Asia and the Pacific;
• Production of UN Women Asia-Pacific related stories, knowledge resources, presentations, and background material for internal and external use;
• Produce press- and media related material, such as press releases and social media messages;
• Quality edits provided to knowledge products;
• Effective coordination support of messaging during thematic days;
• Quality communications-related support provided to global campaigns, Beijing+25, 16 Days of Activism, and International Women’s Day.

Learning Elements Required as a Part of the Internship:

• Increased understanding of UN Women’s work and the UN system;
• Increased substantive knowledge of gender equality and empowerment of women in the Asia Pacific Region;
• Increased knowledge and skills on gender-based reporting, social media, and photojournalism;
• Meeting and networking with UN Women colleagues in other units;
• Work as a team member in a multicultural setting.

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability
• Creative Problem Solving
• Effective Communication
• Inclusive Collaboration
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Leading by Example

Functional Competencies:

• Demonstrated experience in work related to journalism, online communications including social media, whether voluntary (such as campaigning), private (such as blogging, creative writing, etc.) or professional;
• Demonstrated commitment to gender equality, women’s empowerment and ending violence against women, with experience on the topic;
• Capacity to communicate and present information in a concise and capturing way;
• Ability to think and work logically and work precisely, delivering quality products under tight deadlines;
• Good IT skills are required;
• Photography skills are an asset;
• Initiative, motivation and ability to work harmoniously with staff members of different national and cultural backgrounds.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• University studies in one of the following disciplines: journalism, communications, marketing, gender studies, social sciences or other relevant subjects is required.
• Be enrolled in a graduate school programme (second university degree or equivalent, or higher); Be enrolled in the final academic year of a first university degree programme (minimum Bachelor's level or equivalent); Have graduated with a university degree and, if selected, must commence the internship within a one-year period of graduation, or Be enrolled in a postgraduate professional traineeship program which is part of a degree programme and undertake the internship as part of the program requirements.

Language:

• Excellent communication skills (written and oral) in English are required;
• Working knowledge of another UN language is an advantage.

Renumeration:

Interns who are not in receipt of financial support from other sources such as universities or other institutions will receive a stipend from UN Women to partially subsidize their basic living costs for the duration of the internship.

Application Information:

• All applicants must submit a completed and signed P.11 form with their application.
• Due to the high volume of applications received, we can ONLY contact successful candidates.
• Successful candidate will be required to provide proof of enrollment in a valid health insurance plan at the duty station of the internship, proof of school enrollment or degree, a scanned copy of their passport/national ID and a copy of a valid visa (as applicable).  

Note:

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.