Program Officer - Central America

Reports to: Program Manager

Working location: Mexico and Costa Rica

Start date: April 2023

About GVI

Our planet is in crisis and inequality affects people around the globe. At GVI, our teams are choosing to take action. We bring a range of specialised skills together for a common goal: supporting a more sustainable future.

GVI is an international multi-award-winning social enterprise. We offer conservation and community development programs in 13 countries, all aligned to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and led by our teams and experts from the communities we operate in.

Working at GVI is fast-paced and fun. We value passion, authenticity and innovation, and we treat each other with respect. But we can do better than words to show you who we are! To see what it's really like to work for GVI, click here.

About the role

The Program Coordinator has the responsibility to coordinate and supervise program activities to assure smooth operations in the Costa Rican and Mexico Sea Turtle Conservation programs along with undertaking proper volunteer management and training for this program . Always making sure that all activities comply with GVI Health and Safety standards. All activities and responsibilities are to be closely conducted in co-ordination with the Program Manager and local partners staff. The Program Coordinator will have direct communication with and be line managed by the Program Manager on-site.

Role and responsibilities:

• Assist in the management of international participants on all aspects of the programs. The position also requires mentoring interns.
• Manage and lead a small number of field staff, providing support in field and off field.
• Administration- provide accurate information and writing of reports, keeping track of basic accounting and timetabling.
• Manage the weekly schedule and ensure tasks are prepared in advance, completed to a professional standard and sent prior to deadline for checking and editing.
• Maintain and nurture excellent relationships with all our partners and communities at all times and strive to uphold GVI’s reputation.
• Manage professional, high quality training sessions for all participants.
• Provide general help whenever the need arises or when it is requested as well as a willingness and ability to effectively support field activities across all the programs that we run.
• Motivate and support your participants to a high level.
• Help manage conflict and complaints from all parties effectively and communicate all such issues with your line manager as appropriate depending on the urgency.
• Assist Program Manager with overseeing strict health and safety procedures.
• Assist Program Manager with training of new staff.
• Assist Program Manager with providing accurate information and writing of reports, timetabling and updating Social Media. Ensure tasks are prepared in advance, completed to a professional standard and sent prior to deadline for checking and editing.
• Assist Program Manager to continuously seek to improve the quality of the program for volunteers. This might include such things as extra activities, training opportunities, services or expedition products.
• Assist in project development and ensuring that the programs continue to operate to a high standard for both participants and partners.
• Keep good communications and relations with local project partners, seeking out feedback and assuring that the sea turtle conservation program is in line with our partners objectives and needs, and assisting with development of new partnerships and growth as needed and appropriate.
• Keep open, direct and regular communications with the Program Manager at all times to assist with smooth in-country operations.
• Fundraise alongside the GVI CP to help support our partners.
• Adopt a flexible working week including evening and weekends, which includes overnight supervision of participants.
• Assist in base and accommodations chores and base duty.
• Take on any relevant tasks as delegated by the Program Manager.
• All field staff are expected to adhere to GVI’s health, safety and environment and Data Protection policies. Management of participants and staff in respect of this is a priority at all times.
• All field staff are expected to adhere to GVI’s terms and conditions, and staff conduct guidelines as presented as an annex to the contract.

About you

If you are ambitious, purpose-driven, and you have a great sense of humour,  we want to meet you. As an organisation, we know that welcoming a broad range of people with unique identities makes us powerful and we are committed to diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

Personal attributes:

• Background in conservation
• Excellent time management skills (working to deadlines)
• Active & effective communication skills (written, oral & body language)
• Autonomous problem-solving skills
• Enthusiastic and flexible leadership style, including active listening skills
• Honest, team player & strong work ethics
• Passion, motivation & commitment for conservation, research, community, education & impact
• Positivity and a sense of humour.

Professional skills and experience:

• Fluency in English

• Conversational Spanish.

• Able to drive a stick shift, valid up to date drivers licence.

• Good leadership skills

• Excellent problem solving skills

• Capacity to manage conflict situations

• Capacity to work long shifts ( activities start 0700 hrs end 0700 hrs) from Monday to Friday, with events on weekends.

• Love of sea turtle conservation

• Science background

• Experience working with international volunteers

• Volunteer management experience

• Advantageous:

  • A conservation or education-related degree or qualification
  • Trained in First Aid

Benefits

Here’s what our global team enjoys:

• Social fund

• Training fund

• Collaborative, flexible culture

• Transparency – hear directly from the CEO consistently

• We laugh a lot, genuinely care about and support each other, and do the occasional dress-up

• Leadership development

• In-house counselling support

• Growth opportunities across our 17 locations!

Package includes:

• Monthly salary
• Accommodation
• Food
• Visa costs (if applicable)
• Emergency medical and travel insurance

You can find out more about the type of work GVI does and who we are as an organisation here.

To apply:

Please send your CV along with a cover letter stating why you feel you would be best suited to this position at GVI.

Please note: We will do our utmost to respond to all applicants, however, given the large volume of applications we receive, this isn't always possible. If you do not hear back from us within three-four weeks, please take it that on this occasion your application was unsuccessful.