Community Engagement Assistants x2 at Planned Parenthood Association of Zambia

The Planned Parenthood Association of Zambia (PPAZ), established in 1972, is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organisation, which provides non-discriminatory, friendly, gender-sensitive and comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health (SHR) services to hard-to-reach and vulnerable groups who include young people and women of reproductive age in Zambia.  PPAZ seeks to recruit Community Engagement Assistants (02) under the Women’s Sexual Integrated Health (WISH2Action) project being implemented with support from DFID and International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).  The staff will be based at the Kitwe and Choma PPAZ Reproductive Health Clinics.

Position Summary:

The Community Engagement Assistants will be responsible for creating demand for sexual reproductive health services in the target communities. They will work closely with the Community Engagement Officers and the Hub Managers to continuously identify key health behavior determinants among project target groups in all WISH2Action communities/clusters and implement appropriate strategies to ensure access to life saving SRH services.

Duty Station: Choma and Kitwe Districts

Responsibilities

• Create and foster partnerships with like-minded community-based organisations and community leaders and share information about WISH2Action Project and its purpose
• Initiate and coordinate all strategic engagements (meetings, orientations) with gate keepers (e.g. local leaders) to create demand for SRH services, identify and address barriers in access SRH services by the target groups, and build relationships for project sustainability
• Support the hub to engage and build partnerships with community structures (local leaders, public health facilities, local organisations)
• Work closely with community-based agents such as Neighbourhood Health Committees (NHCs), Safe Motherhood Action Groups (SMAGs), Community Health Workers (CHWs), Community-based Distributors (CBDs), peer educators etc. to create awareness on the availability of sexual and reproductive health services
• Work with the hub manager and other project staff on safeguarding of young people and vulnerable adults to avoid any form of risks
• Participate in periodic risk assessments processes to identify child and vulnerable adult safeguarding risks and implement developed mitigation strategies
• Adequately prepare communities/sites during donor-initiated or senior project staff site visits
• Support the implementation of community feedback mechanisms to inform implementation strategy and ensure project accountability to the communities
• Ensure the participation of the project in community events (e.g. commemorations of national and international days, participation in appropriate meetings/forums at community level) to create project awareness and develop partnerships critical for project success
• Communicate any identified barriers in accessing sexual and reproductive health services by project target groups in the WISH2Action communities/clusters.
• Disseminate social behaviour communication change materials that address identified key health behavior determinants among target groups
• Support the hubs to create and maintain regularly updated community/district service maps/directories to facilitate service referrals to other providers within the project catchment area
• Support the Hub Managers to coordinate all project meetings and trainings; ensuring availability of appropriate venues, resources person, schedules, materials etc.
• Contribute to the collection and documentation of success stories, lessons learnt in a manner which promotes dignity /respect and obtaining informed consent of vulnerable groups, and ensuring that the stories are not used in any way which poses a risk
• Work closely with the WISH2Action team to effectively identify communities/sites with unmet SRH needs where project activities should be prioritized in keeping with the programme implementation strategy and priorities
• Contribute to the development of workplans (quarterly, semi-annual and annual)
• Write and submit activity reports and appropriate programmatic reports that feed into the overall project programmatic reports

Requirements

• Excellent knowledge of community engagement/mobilisation techniques and methods

• Good understanding of the delivery of health services in Zambia especially sexual reproductive health services (SRH)
• Excellent knowledge of MS Office
• Excellent organisational and communication skills
• Bachelor’s Degree in any social Science or health related-discipline or a relevant field
• Minimum of two (2) years’ work experience in a similar position

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