Senior Community Based Protection Assistant

Hardship Level (not applicable for home-based)D

Family Type (not applicable for home-based)

Family

Staff Member / Affiliate TypeUNOPS LICA5

Target Start Date2025-01-01

Deadline for ApplicationsNovember 15, 2024

Terms of Reference1. General Background

The UNHCR Representation in Venezuela is comprised of the Country Office in Caracas, two Field Offices located on the border with Colombia (San Cristobal and Maracaibo), as well as three Field Units, one in Caracas, the capital district; Carupano (Sucre) in the border with Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana; and Santa Elena de Uairen in the border with Brazil. San Cristobal Field Office covers Táchira, Mérida, Apure and Barinas states.

The operational context in Venezuela remains challenging, affecting both refugees and asylum seekers and the Venezuelan population in humanitarian crisis, including displaced persons, returnees, and people on-the-move. Since the first quarter of 2022, an increase in returns and a high need for protection has been observed.

The Senior Community Based Protection Assistant will report to the Senior Field Assistant. The incumbent monitors protection standards, operational procedures and practices in protection delivery in line with international standards and provides functional protection support to information management and programme staff.

The Senior Protection Assistant provides quality, timely and effective protection support to persons of concern (PoC) and identifies opportunities to mainstream protection methodologies and safeguards in operational responses. S/he contributes to designing a comprehensive protection strategy and may liaise externally with local authorities and partners on protection issues as guided by the supervisor.

The Senior Protection Assistant also ensures that PoC are involved in making decisions that affect them, whether in accessing their rights or in identifying appropriate solutions to their problems. To achieve this, the incumbent will need to build and maintain effective interfaces with communities of concern, local authorities and protection and assistance partners.

All UNHCR workforce members must individually and collectively, contribute towards a working environment where each person feels safe, and empowered to perform their duties. This includes by demonstrating no tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse, harassment including sexual harassment, sexism, gender inequality, discrimination, and abuse of power.

As individuals and as managers, all must be proactive in preventing and responding to inappropriate conduct, support ongoing dialogue on these matters and speaking up and seeking guidance and support from relevant UNHCR resources when these issues arise.

2. Purpose and Scope of Assignment

- Assist functional units, the Multi-Functional Team (MFT) to integrate participatory and community-based approaches in the overall protection strategy.
- Understand the perspectives, capacities, needs and resources of the PoC and advise the protection team, accordingly, highlighting the specific protection needs of women and men, children, youth and older persons, persons with disabilities, marginalized groups.
- Support implementing and operational partners as well as displaced and local communities to develop community-owned activities to address, where applicable, the social, educational, psycho-social, cultural, health, organisational and livelihood concerns as well as child protection and prevention and response to GBV.
- Assist in the analysis that identifies the capacities of communities of concern and risks they face.
- Support participatory assessments by multifunctional teams and ongoing consultation with PoC.
- Support communities in establishing representation and coordination structures.
- Initiate AGD sensitive interventions at the appropriate level on community-based protection issues and to respond to protection concerns and incidents within the office and with persons and communities of concern based on agreed parameters.
- Establish and maintain close relationships with implementing partners local authorities, social organizations, and grassroots organizations. This includes regular meetings, community visits, and participation in local events.
- Provide training and technical support to community structures and local partners to strengthen their capacities in project management and activity implementation.
- Support capacity building of committees, promoters, youth and women’s networks, fostering active community participation in decision-making and solution implementation.
- Contribute to the design of a training plan for community structures.
- Monitor the implementation of programmatic activities to ensure they are carried out as planned and achieve the expected results.
- Perform other related duties as required.

3. Monitoring and Progress Controls

A workplan will be prepared at the beginning of the contract between the incumbent and the supervisor to define key activities and project timelines to ensure an efficient delivery of expected outputs and products. Weekly meetings will be organized between the supervisor and the consultant to discuss advances, track progress, and discuss how to overcome potential challenges.

4. Qualifications and Experience

a. Education
A university degree in social science, law, international relations, community development, psychology, political science, or other related fields.

b. Work Experience

Years of Experience / Degree Level
2 years relevant experience with High School Diploma; or 1-year relevant work experience with Bachelor or equivalent or higher.

Essential:
Proven experience working in field and community level settings. Experience implementing needs and/or participatory assessments at community level. Design and Implementation of community capacity building projects.

Desirable
Project management skills or training, data base and/ or information management skills. Empathy, negotiation and communication skills to deal with community leaders and authorities.

c. Key Competencies
Core Competencies
Accountability
Communication
Organizational Awareness
Teamwork & Collaboration
Commitment to Continuous Learning
Client & Result Orientation
Cross-Functional Competencies
Analytical Thinking
Political Awareness
Stakeholder Management

d. Language requirements
Knowledge of English and/or UN working language of the duty station if not English is desirable.

e. Functional Skills
IT-Computer Literacy
CL-Protection & Solutions Awareness
PR-Protection-related guidelines, standards and indicators
PR-Refugee Protection Principles and Framework

f. Travel requirements
Contractor may be required to travel 20% of the time to locations other than their assigned work location.

Standard Job Description

Required Languages Spanish

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,

Desired Languages English

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Additional Qualifications

Skills

Education

Certifications

Work Experience

Other informationThis position doesn't require a functional clearance

Home-BasedNo