Background

I. The IMPACT Programme

In July 2020, ChildFund New Zealand launched the Inspiring and Motivating Pacific and Asian Communities for Tomorrow (IMPACT) Programme, a five year, NZD 11.2 million funded development assistance programme in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) through its Partnering for Impact funding mechanism. This funding stream, called a ‘Negotiated Partnership’, is a new way of working for MFAT, and the New Zealand INGO sector, as they mandate a ‘Programme’ of work across a 5-year timeframe and promote concepts of adaptability, measuring for impact and engagement of the New Zealand public. The IMPACT Programme initially consisted of five project locations including Vietnam, which has already been finalised, and Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Timor-Leste.

Through leveraging the respective strengths and resources of ChildFund New Zealand and MFAT, and listening to local voices, the partnership aspires to protect, empower, and increase the resilience of children, youth and communities in the Pacific and Southeast Asia, better equipping them to shape safer and more prosperous futures.

The long-term expected outcomes of the IMPACT programme are:

Children and youth have enhanced well-being and life skills and are agents for positive change in their lives and communities.
Children and youth live in a protective environment.
Communities have enhanced resilience to natural hazards, climatic risks and Covid-19.
Local partners demonstrate greater self-reliance.
New Zealanders are more engaged and supportive of NZ’s aid efforts.

As part of the IMPACT Programme, ChildFund New Zealand partnered with ChildFund Timor-Leste to deliver the Inspiring Youth Change-Makers Project in Timor-Leste.

II. Inspiring Youth Changemakers

Timor-Leste has made significant progress after gaining independence in 2002. This young country, however, still faces major development challenges, including widespread malnutrition, poor educational outcomes, weak government capacity to deliver socio-economic reform and significant inequalities between urban and rural populations. Underlying each of these challenges is Timor-Leste’s sizable youth bulge with approximately 60 percent of the population under 25 years of age.

Timor-Leste’s 2018 National Human Development Report extensively surveyed youth wellbeing in all 13 municipalities and found that young people are disproportionately impacted by poverty, negative social norms, exclusion from family and community decision-making, inadequate education and limited access to employment. Indeed, unemployment is set to grow with a projection that more than 300,000 people will join the working age population over the next 10 years with dim prospects of gaining full employment.

ChildFund Timor-Leste partnered with Ba Futuru, a leading national not-for-profit organisation that designs and conducts life-enhancing training programs, to implement the five-year ‘Inspiring Youth Changemakers’ project in communities in Lautem Municipality, which commenced in 2020 and will conclude in 2025. As stated above, this partnership is funded through ChildFund New Zealand’s IMPACT Programme.

Over the life of the project, the intervention will reach 300 ‘Changemakers’: mostly out-of-school youth aged between 15-25, who are unemployed or in vulnerable employment, are in a stage of their lives where they are at greatest risk of being left behind by their peers, face significant challenges and potential adversity, need support to develop resilience, self-worth and a sense of purpose and/or require support building confidence to take leadership roles addressing some of these challenges.

In each year of the Project, 60 Changemakers are recruited and receive intensive training on such topics as peace building, leadership, economic empowerment, life skills, theatre training and script development.

Following their training, each cohort of Changemakers works in smaller groups collaboratively designing, planning and implementing theatrical showcases at community festivals and in schools to share their learnings, as well as participating in monitoring and evaluation activities to measure the community impact of their outreach. Changemakers also conduct peer education sessions in their communities. The project will soon commence implementing these activities with its third cohort.

The Project also identifies and supports youth-focused civil society organisations (CSOs) in Lautem Municipality to design, implement and evaluate programs that focus on the social and emotional wellbeing of female and male youth. By the project’s third year, 11 youth-focused CSOs and youth groups have been identified – some of these including graduate Changemakers – and have received ‘From Vision to Action’ training on strategic planning and leadership, administration, basic finance skills, monitoring and evaluation, advocacy, grant application writing and resource mobilisation.

The Project’s intended goal and outcomes are the following:

Goal: Youth have social and emotional wellbeing and are resilient agents for positive change

Medium-Term Outcome 1: Young women and men’s social emotional wellbeing is improved to positively influence their lives and relationships.

Medium-Term Outcome 2: Young women and men have participated in their communities and taken meaningful action to influence positive change.

Medium-Term Outcome 3: Youth- focused CSOs have increased capacity to develop the social emotional wellbeing of young women and men.

Short-Term Outcome 1: Young women and men are empowered as Changemakers with knowledge and skills for building youth resilience.

Short-Term Outcome 2: Young women and men have designed, implemented, and evaluated activities that positively influence community attitudes on important social issues.

Short-Term Outcome 3: Youth-focused CSOs and youth leaders have strengthened capacity to design, implement and evaluate programs focused on the social and emotional wellbeing of young women and men.

Consultant’s Roles and Responsibilities:

- Secondary information analysis:

Desk review of relevant IMPACT programme and Inspiring Youth Changemakers Project documents and reports, such as proposals, assessments, project budgets, monitoring and assessment reports, and ChildFund guidelines.
Establish working contacts with all the relevant stakeholders in the targeted communities.

- Primary information analysis:

Field visits to selected sites; among other surveys, interviews and/or focus group discussions with local partners, youth, teachers, community members (adults) and other stakeholders by the Consultant.
Submit an inception report (with detailed methodology, research tools and timeline/logistics) for review, feedback and approval by ChildFund Timor-Leste. Youth participation is a strong focus of this intervention so participatory methods are a must and approaches that include young people in the collection, synthesis and analysis of data are desired.
Design a set of data collection tools in collaboration with ChildFund Timor-Leste MEL Coordinator, Youth Coordinator, local partner Ba Futuru and ChildFund Australia and ChildFund New Zealand advisors for feedback and approval.
Collect data using approved data collection tools.
Interview selected respondents during the evaluation.
Submit draft evaluation report and finalize it based on the feedback from ChildFund Timor-Leste and ChildFund New Zealand.
Submission of individual recommendations for ChildFund Timor-Leste, ChildFund New Zealand and local partners.

Deliverables of the Consultancy:

Prepare and submit an evaluation protocol in English detailing how the evaluation will be carried out. The protocol will outline the evaluation design, sampling methods to be used and questions to be answered, and detailed work plan for the entire exercise. As part of the evaluation protocol, the consultant must provide a data analysis plan showing the questions and analysis for each of the Project indicators to be investigated.
Design and develop all required data collection tools: Draft questionnaires, interview guides and other data collection tools will be submitted to ChildFund Timor-Leste for review and feedback from Ba Futuru and ChildFund New Zealand before data collection starts.
Develop the research methodology and respective tools for review and approval by ChildFund Timor-Leste and ChildFund New Zealand.
Conduct pre-testing of developed guidelines and all instruments and amend as appropriate.
Conduct field level data collection based on agreed assessment and survey tools, maintain quality and accepted norms and standards, lead the data entry and analysis.
Carry out data entry and transcribing of interview and FGD notes in preparation for data analysis.
Present the findings and outcomes in a draft report, to be reviewed for feedback by ChildFund Timor-Leste and ChildFund New Zealand.
Submit a detailed final report in English outlining the evaluation methodology, findings, lessons learned and recommendations. The report shall incorporate specific simple and achievable recommendations, including the most appropriate strategies that can be undertaken and/or incorporated by ChildFund Timor-Leste and partners to attempt to address the issues identified. The final report should address the issues and questions raised in this ToR and correspond to the evaluation objectives set out above.
The Consultant will be expected to conduct data collection in English, Portuguese and Tetum, as appropriate. The working language and all deliverables are due in English.

Criteria to ensure the quality of the evaluation report:

The evaluation report shall address all questions included in the scope of work.
Evaluation methodology shall be explained in detail and all tools used in conducting the MTR such as questionnaires, checklists and discussion guides will be included as annexes in the final report.
Evaluation findings will assess outcomes and impact on young men and women.
Findings should be specific, concise, and supported by strong quantitative or qualitative evidence.
Sources of information need to be properly identified and listed in an annex.
Recommendations need to be supported by a specific set of findings.

Recommendations should be action oriented, practical, and specific, with defined responsibility for the action.

Required experience and qualifications:

University qualification with master’s degree in Community Development, Sociology or other social sciences, Monitoring and Evaluation or related disciplines with strong experience in community consultation and data collection.
Understanding of issues relating to children and youth development, globally and within the Asia Pacific region.
Connected with children and youth organisations working in the region – with knowledge on who’s doing what, their approach and reputation.
Applied knowledge and sound understanding of Results Based Management (RBM) and theory of change.
Proven experience in data management and analysis and report writing including use of data analysis software’s such as the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), Ms. Excel or any other relevant data analysis software and Qualitative Analysis (FGD and KII).
Flexible and able to adapt to a multi-cultural environment and complex situations, with demonstrable high-level interpersonal and cross-cultural skills, such as building collaborative relationships internally and externally.
Self-driven, strong organizational and planning skills, with the ability to work independently or in a group, as well as under pressure
Knowledge of Portuguese language, Bahasa or Tetum is an added advantage for data collection.
Excellent command of English both written and oral
Consultants who can be based in Dili for the duration of the assignment are highly preferred.

Please Click on POSITION DESCRIPTION to find more information about the ToR of this consultancy job.

Submission of Application

ChildFund welcomes applications from qualified applicants or consultancy firms by 2 March 2023. The selected candidate should be available to commence work by 16 March 2023.

All interested candidates should submit a cover letter in English describing their suitability based on the above required qualifications and experiences. The candidate should include a recent CV with referees, principles and approach that will be used to achieve the purpose/objectives of this Consultancy work and a financial proposal.

NOTE: The financial proposal should specify a total lump sum amount and a breakdown of a daily professional fee and communication costs etc. Applications without a financial proposal will be regarded as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

How to apply:

Please click on the Apply for This Job button on the right-hand side of your screen above to submit your application.

Note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

For further information, please contact Manuel Marques at mmarques@childfund.org.au (don’t use this email to submit the application)

ChildFund is an equal opportunities employer and has a strict child safeguarding policy and background checks will be undertaken prior to any offer of employment.

ChildFund is an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) employer and strongly encourage people from all backgrounds, abilities, and identities to apply for any vacancies.