Consultant Recruitment: Youth Participation Consultant, ECAR O/P, Prague, Czech Republic (8 months) #569810

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. 

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. 

And we never give up. 

For every child, Hope

As of December 2023, 5,9 million Ukrainian refugees have been recorded across Europe. As national social protection measures decrease, the risk of refugee children from Ukraine falling into poverty is growing. The re-registration data show that currently there are 375,021 refugees from Ukraine with Temporary Protection in the Czech Republic. This includes 97,054 children under the age of 18 years (26%), 176,907 women aged 18+ years (47%), and 101,060 men aged 18+ (27%). There are 21,996 Ukrainian refugee youth aged 15-18 in the country. Ukrainian refugee youth are living in every single region of the Czech Republic, with the highest number of adolescent refugees in the regions of Prague (5,635) and Central Bohemia (2,978). The trends indicate an average of 1,100 newly registered refugees per week.

As such, UNICEF Refugee Response in the Czech Republic will work with partners to incorporate youth into defining and designing interventions that impact youth. This will include working with youth to lead data collection through participatory activities, co-create programmes, and conduct qualitative assessments of UNICEF-funded programmes. The goal is to influence key decision makers by incorporating youth perspective into all programme activities that impact them.

As part of this, UNICEF Refugee Response Office seeks a youth consultant who will be responsible for co-creating, designing and implementing an outreach strategy using participatory approaches while reaching and connecting with displaced youth from Ukraine residing in the Czech Republic. The youth consultant will design the strategy based on collection of qualitative data and youth consultations in various regions across the Czech Republic to identify and understand youth needs, opportunities and challenges they face. An integral part of the consultant work will be developing communication strategy which involves designing relevant tools, forms, channels and content as well as testing and prototyping it to ensure the information are reaching relevant youth and content is accessible and comprehensive. The youth consultant will use design methodologies including human center design. The consultant will collaborate with designated UNICEF Refugee Response staff and other partners.

How can you make a difference? 

The youth Consultant will be responsible for implementing youth-led research and co-creation activities to support programmes implemented by UNICEF Refugee Response Office and partners in the Czech Republic.

The key tasks for the youth consultant include:

1.  Identifying Ukrainian refugee youth through UNICEF supported programs in the Czech Republic while using various outreach methodologies and tools.
2. Conducting youth co-creation consultations, trainings, and workshops in person and online about employment, skills building, education and wellbeing and mental health. This will include using various tools and participatory approaches.
3. Collecting information and data, analyzing, and synthetizing the data, interpreting, and understanding the information while using various tools for that. In this activity proposing insights and actionable points is required.
4. Training and working with Ukrainian youth representatives (Regional Integration Centers) in various regions of the Czech Republic to design and implement local outreach strategies reaching out to young people in their regions, understanding their situation with focus on their educational and financial needs, and connecting them to relevant local and other services and support programs.
5.  Planning, coordinating, and communicating with Ukrainian youth across the country as well as other relevant partners, namely the personnel of Regional Integration Centers and other partners in form of written report and presentations on relevant platforms. This will include incorporating feedback mechanisms and information sharing. This process will be ongoing and will be done online and/or in person to meet stakeholders’ needs.
6. Representing the youth voice, needs and viewpoints on relevant platforms and forums (decision making events, Cesty working group, media and others)
7. Supporting development of the youth employment and learning program CESTY with insights from the young Ukrainian refugees in the regions.

Given the youth design nature of the consultancy it will require a candidate to thoroughly relate to the young target audience beyond acquired knowledge. This consultancy requires a candidate who can naturally understand the life experience of young Ukrainian refugees in the Czech Republic.

The candidate will be between 18 and 25 years old, shall have a firsthand experience and insights into the needs, preferences and behaviors of young refugees and should have some experience with human centered design; however formal training is not required.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have… 

• Experience in training human centered design, participatory research, or qualitative research methodologies is highly desirable.
•  Proven “Context expertise”, e.g. has experience being displaced youth in the Czech Republic is highly desirable.
• Strong ability to synthesize multiple streams of information.
• Strong communication skills and planning skills Training in research ethics, prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse, and familiarity with child safeguarding principles is highly desirable.
• Experience working with UNICEF, or another UN Agency is highly desirable.
• Fluent in English and either Ukranian/Russian or Czech.

Assets:

•  Is entrepreneurial, curious, and passionate about social impact.
• Works well as part of a team, consistently seeks to understand the perspective of others.
• Feels comfortable with ambiguity. Able to balance flexible work style while maintaining focus on goal.

What to submit (kindly note that your application will not be considered if the below are not included with your application):

• CV
• Motivational letter
• Financial Proposal

For every Child, you demonstrate… 

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS). 

To view our competency framework, please visit  here. 

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment. 

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check. 

Remarks:  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. 

This consultancy will be office based. 

Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.