Aga Khan Foundation

The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) is an Agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), a group of private, non-denominational development agencies that share a mission to improve the living conditions and opportunities for marginalized communities across some target countries in Africa and Asia. AKF was established by His Highness the Aga Khan in Switzerland in 1967 and began working in East Africa in 1974. In Uganda, AKF operates a multi-sectoral portfolio that includes programming in Education, Economic Inclusion, Civil Society, Health and Early Childhood Development predominantly in the Central and West Nile Regions. AKF is committed to ensuring girls and boys, women and men, are equipped with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values to help them interact effectively with the world and be contributing members of a pluralistic society.

1. Background of the AGENCI Project

AKF and World University Service of Canada (WUSC), in partnership with Global Affairs Canada, will be implementing a four-year project to increase the agency and self-empowerment of adolescent girls and female youth pursuing educational pathways in Moyo and Obongi. The Adolescent Girls’ Education in Crisis Initiative (AGENCI) project will impact the lives of 148,000 adolescent girls and female youth aged 10-24. AGENCI will improve equitable learning outcomes for adolescent girls and female youth in primary, secondary school, and in non-school learning programmes. AGENCI will respond to specific barriers and educational needs identified by adolescent girls, female youth, community members, and education stakeholders to address the root causes of inequality by challenging and helping transform structural barriers and entrenched social norms, attitudes, and power relations that impact girls’ ability to access and benefit from education.

2. Purpose and Objectives of AGENCI Communication Materials

MORE JOBS ( September 2024)

AKF is soliciting technical and financial proposals from highly qualified communication cconsultants (Individuals or organisations) to design and deliver quality communication materials to popularize AGENCI Project core activities. The communication materials are central to enabling target communities actively address deep-rooted socio-cultural norms that serve to maintain, entrench, and exacerbate gender and social inequity. The successful consultant will demonstrate previous experience of developing impactful such content aligned to existing Social Behavioural Change (SBC) strategies and propose appropriate approached for pretesting and finalizing the materials. AKF will conduct regular quality assurance for work under this assignment with all activities be delivered in Moyo and Obongi districts in West Nile-Uganda.

3. Scope of work

It is expected that the successful consultant will co-design, pre-test and deliver the following products:

  • 10 High quality info spots of at least 1 minute each for promoting children learning especially for adolescent girls in the context of Moyo and Obongi. Such info spots will also highlight distance learning opportunities ensuring that parents and community members are encouraged to proactively support learning during COVID 19 pandemic
  • Propose creative approaches for engaging girls in selected 35 school communities to come up with practical innovations for addressing learning and safety issues affecting children especially the adolescent girls in Moyo and Obongi during the ongoing COVID 19. This specific activity will involve proposing selection criteria for the girls to be involved, development of tools to be used and ensuring that children’s voices are well represented and integrated in the proposed solutions/innovations
  • Design a documentary about community feedback on AGENCI selected Project activities undertaken so far including: Remedial Classes, COVID 19 communications campaigns and roles of community resource persons in supporting child protection during COVID 19 Pandemic.
  • Design and print small child friendly cartoon booklets for encouraging/motivating children especially adolescent girls not to lose interest in learning during COVID 19 using simple illustrations and easy to comprehend captions. (In total, 30000 booklets will be printed)
  • Compile a comprehensive inception and end of activity report to be approved by AKF

4. Qualifications of Consultants

  • Demonstrate relevant experience and expertise for having developed high impact communications activities for reputable likeminded organisations in Uganda. Previous experience of working within emergency and refugee contexts with complex social issues including sexual reproductive health rights (SRHR) for adolescent girls will be an added advantage
  • Experience delivering communications work focused on gender and education in Uganda
  • Commitment to respect safeguarding of vulnerable populations including children, women, the elderly, and people living with disabilities. Interested organisations must have a safeguarding policy and be ready to submit to AKF on demand
  • Evidence of high quality written, technical, and presented work

5. Criteria for selection

All submissions will be assessed on the following criteria

  • Technical proposal 40%
  • Technical experience 30%
  • Value for Money 30%

How to Apply

The successful consultant will undertake the assignment under supervision of the AKF Programme Manager and commit to complying to AKF’s reporting requirements during the contract period. Interested candidates are expected to:

  • Develop a technical proposal (Not more than 6 pages) including budget for undertaking the assignment. The proposal should include key activities and necessary processes for delivering the intended results. Please also highlight the data collection methods that are responsive to the current COVID 19 safety requirements
  • Share individual or company profile indicating similar assignments handled for other like-minded organisations that implement similar education and girls’ empowerment work (Please also include 3 contacts for reference)
  • Propose core team with ideal professional background to deliver the proposed activities including sharing of CVs of the proposed personal and previous similar engagements undertaken
  • Following an initial meeting upon selection, provide a detailed inception report outlining how the processes will successfully be delivered and provide refinements to the original proposal.
  • The consultant will ensure all products are co-developed with AKF and informed by a selection of diverse community representatives to ensure quality, relevance of languages and content to the targeted project audience and is responding to the cultural context of Moyo and Obongi.

Submissions must be received by AKF no later than 23 August 2021. Please e-mail all required documents to akf.uganda@akdn.org with ‘Application for Developing AGENCI Project Communication Materials’ in the subject line. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

AKF is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is Committed to Safeguarding and Promoting the Welfare of Children and Vulnerable Adults and Expects all Staff and Partners to Share this Commitment.

The Aga Khan Foundation is an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (www.akdn.org)

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