TITLE OF VACANT POSITION: SAFEGUARDING OFFICER

Report to: National Coordinator

Contract Type: Full-time Position

Functional Relationships: All team members and external stakeholders as required

Duty Station: Monrovia

ABOUT FAWE

FAWE Liberia, a national chapter of FAWE International, was launched at the Ministry of Education (MOE) on December 15, 1998 with a mandate to close the gender gap in education and contribute towards the achievement of the Education For All (EFA) goals. FAWE Liberia is officially registered with the Ministries of Planning, Foreign Affairs and Education as a local NGO.

FAWE Liberia’s national priority is to bridge the gender gaps in education by advocating for policy change to improve educational opportunities for girls and young women; to reach those counties in which branches have not yet been established; to execute awareness campaigns at the grass root levels on the need to educate the girl child at all levels; and to carry out development interventions in girls’ education and the empowerment of women.

The Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) is a non-governmental organization that is non-political, voluntary, charitable, non-sectarian and does not discriminate based on race, ideology, color, nationality, or religious persuasion. At FAWE Liberia, we promote gender equity and equality in education in Liberia by fostering favorable policies and attitudes toward girls’ education.

Job purpose

Reporting to the National Coordinator, the Safeguarding will provide support to staff of FAWE to fully implement FAWE’s Safeguarding policy and standards across the Program and in all its activities.

The role will focus on strengthening a safe culture and environment, promoting safeguarding awareness, support and ensuring that across the program staff are encouraged and feel empowered to report safeguarding concerns.

Key activities

Safe Programming

• Support the Program Coordinator to identify safeguarding risks across the programme and work on ways to mitigate these risks.
• Coordinate the production of safeguarding awareness raising materials and their placement in program strategic locations.
• Support colleagues across the programme to review operating procedures, working methods and physical arrangements to improve safeguarding arrangements.
• Support Programme Partners to understand and carry out their safeguarding responsibilities and support the Programme to conduct due diligence of Partners.

Policy

• FAWE’s Safeguarding Policy as a foundation, support the publication, dissemination and implementation of policies, procedures and good practice documents and tools. This will include ensuring that procedures in different parts of the programme meet the needs of different stakeholder groups and are understood by different audiences.

Training and awareness raising

• Work with the National Coordinator and HR Officer to develop a range of materials to raise awareness safeguarding standards and reporting mechanisms to ensure that high levels of awareness of standards of behavior, rights, obligations and reporting mechanisms across all areas of the programme.
• Work with the HR to develop or adapt and deliver general and role-specific training packages and materials for students, staff and other stakeholders that address the challenges and vulnerabilities at play in different contexts including FAWE’s School Programme/interventions. This will include conducting induction training (with HR), refresher training for all staff, students and support the roll out of Community awareness raising activities.
• Work with the National Coordinator and HR to develop, update and implement an annual calendar of trainings and awareness raising sessions.
• Work with the and HR Officer and Program Coordinator to evaluate all training interventions to ensure that participant knowledge, attitudes and behaviors have been positively influenced.
• Work with the National Coordinator, HR Officer and Program Coordinator to ensure that accurate records of all trainings are maintained.
• Provide advice on ways to increase Safeguarding awareness within FAWE.

Safe Reporting and Response

• Receive and safely document safeguarding reports, respond in accordance with procedures, provide referral or next step advice.
• Act as an adviser to managers when safeguarding issues are raised or where there are concerns identified.
• Work with the National Coordinator to establish, manage reporting mechanisms at all levels and for those who come into contact with our work (including all staff, students, contractors, Board, PTA and communities).
• Be proactive about setting up relationships with external professional expertise such as statutory authorities, police, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Gender, Children & Social Protection and women, children and youth groups.
• Support the Program team and managers to strengthen safeguarding investigative capacity across the programme.
• Support the response to allegations and assist with the planning, management and support to investigations related to safeguarding. This will include providing professional advice whilst also taking into consideration the potential risks to personal safety for those involved.

Safe Media and Communications

• Support the programme to implement and comply with FAWE’s standards with regards to safe image and content gathering, storage and use.
• Provide briefing and trainings to internal and external stakeholders to ensure that FAWE’s processes are consistently followed by all school visitors.

Continuous learning and improvement:

• Support any postholders with specific responsibilities for safeguarding to ensure they understand and feel confident carry out their responsibilities.
• Represent FAWE at appropriate sector events on safeguarding and child protection and liaise with other safeguarding professionals to learn from best practice.
• Following a significant event (an investigation or incident) conduct lessons learnt exercises to ensure continuous learning and improvement.

Other

• Attend to any other duties as instructed by the National Coordinator.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Sociology (Social Work) or Gender studies.
• Minimum 5 years’ experience working in child protection or safeguarding
• Experience of working in a role that supports safeguarding, PSEA (Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse) or the protection of children and vulnerable adults
• Experience of developing and delivering training and workshops to different audiences
• Strong communication skills, especially active listening, strong facilitation and presentation skills
• Ability to develop and maintain positive working relationships with colleagues at different levels of an organization
• Experience in conducting assessments, monitoring and report writing
• Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage and prioritize a heavy and varied workload to meet deadlines and work calmly under pressure
• Commitment to FAWE’s mission of gender-responsive education.

Application Procedure

Review of applications will begin as soon as they are received, and only complete applications will be reviewed. If an outstanding applicant is identified early in the search process, we reserve the right to appoint before the deadline. For this reason, we encourage interested candidates to apply at the earliest possible opportunity.

Please submit a detailed CV and a Covering letter to email address recruitment@faweliberia.org with the subject line Safeguarding Officer by latest 6:00 pm GMT; 10^th April 2025