Job Title: Community based malaria control co-ordinator Work Base: MENTOR Kenya – Garissa, north eastern Province
Responsible to: Technical Director, for technical planning + Country Director, for daily activities
Start Date: ASAP Duration: 1 Year (renewable) Fee: The Mentor Initiative offer a good Consultancy Fee and package commensurate to experience.
The MENTOR Initiative is a “not for profit”, charitable, non-governmental organisation devoted to reducing death and suffering from malaria in humanitarian crises. The MENTOR Initiative is currently providing ongoing emergency support to the most vulnerable communities in Haiti, Liberia, Angola, Kenya, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Eastern and Southern Chad.
Overall Task:
This person will help to lead the work of a specialist malaria control team for a four year special Initiative funded by the UK charity Comic Relief to establish an effective and repeatable model for malaria control in the epidemic prone area of north east Kenya, one of the worst climate change affected areas of Africa. The programme will work with a network or local, regional, national and international partners to achieve new standards and guidance for malaria control amongst pastoralist communities, in semi arid areas of Kenya and other countries.
This person will be directly responsible for the effective planning, coordination and implementation of all community based activities, in partnership with affected communities, the Ministry of Health District Health Team, the MoH Division of Malaria Control, international, and national malaria control and research partners.
Specific Tasks:
Team building and management • Train, build and support a strong technical team of community based malaria control officers • Coordinate and supervise a team of community based malaria control officers to carry out the program tasks • Responsible for the orientation and management of Kenyan and international researchers assisting the programme to achieve operational research aims in various aspects of malaria prevention and monitoring and evaluation.
Operational Research In partnership with national and international health and operational research partners this person will: • Design, plan and implement KAP surveys, amongst both static and nomadic pastoralist communities across Larger Garissa to monitor community understanding and behaviour regarding malaria • Plan and implement a multi year study of the Demuria LLIN, including the acceptability, retention, usage and durability amongst nomadic users • Responsible for ensuring good quality standardized monitoring and evaluation of all community based activities.
Building Community Based Malaria Understanding and Effective Malaria Control Behaviour In partnership with affected communities and local health authorities, this person will • Drive the development and collation of local and culturally appropriate IEC materials • Ensure the training of key community volunteers in a package of malaria IEC delivery • Plan, coordinate and ensure the implementation, of all MENTOR Community IEC/BCC activities • Ensure that all IEC/BCC activities implemented by the MENTOR health promotion team and MENTOR’s local partners under the guidance of the Project Director are in line and coordinated with all technical/clinical activities (case management, M&E, Vector Control, etc), partner activities and NMCP national strategies.
Building Community Based Capacity for Malaria Prevention Work with the MoH district health team (DHT) to: • Reinforce and expand their technical and planning capacity for malaria prevention interventions • Establish secure and well managed district warehousing and maintenance of prevention materials and equipment. • Capacity build at risk communities for large-scale IRS campaigns • Manage the planning and roll out of IRS campaigns for emergency malaria prevention, in coordination with operations manager in the event of epidemics. • Plan and coordinate implementation of targeted Demuria LLIN distributions to nomadic families living in areas with poor or no access to health care services.
Reporting and Information Dissemination • Responsible for the production of relevant sections of internal, partner, programme and donor reports. • Responsible for the joint production and publication/dissemination of relevant operational research papers on related programme activities.
Other
a) Backstop the Country Director and the Technical Director when requested to help ensure that all program objectives are being met and international best practices adhered to. b) Represent MENTOR at regional technical meetings c) From time to time and where mutually agreed, support the MENTOR training team to implement international training courses. d) Oversee other MENTOR Initiative activities as agreed with the Technical and Country Directors e) Possible transfer from Kenya to another MENTOR program (or HQ) to take up a similar senior technical or general management role in mutual agreement with the Director.
Specifications:
Required: • Post Graduate Studies Public Health, Epidemiology or closely related subjects • Minimum 5 years international experience in similar role • Kenyan citizen • Fluent in Kiswahili and English • Cultural understanding and previous experience of working with pastoralist and nomadic communities is an asset • Significant experience in Operational Research, including knowledge of and experience in qualitative and epidemiological research methods • Excellent capacity building skills • Relevant experience working in community mobilization (IEC/BCC) • Experience working in Kenya or Somalia preferred • Working knowledge of data analysis (i.e. Epi info, STATA etc) • Excellent report writing skills
Desirable: • Experience of LLIN distribution and IRS implementation • Experience in production and publication of research papers
To Apply: Please send CV, letter of interest and the contact information of three references from you previous three employers to
personnel@mentor-initiative.net.
Closing date February 25th August 2011