Organization: Educate for Life
Position: Chief Operations Officer +/- India Chapter Co-founder
Term: Full-time. 9am to 6pm, Monday to Saturday
Reporting: You will work closely with Edward Forrest (CEO and Co-founder) and be in regular communication. You will report to Educate for Life Trustees, Directors and Advisors at least once quarterly
Location: Udaipur, Rajasthan
Minimum Eligibility Requirements:
Experience:
— Has 3+ years’ experience at grassroots and understands the importance and challenges of working with India’s most hard to reach communities
— Also has 2+ years’ experience in a COO position or equivalent educational management position
Skills required:
— Committed and to take ownership of a project and develop it into an inspiring, celebrated and widely cited example of rural educational excellence globally
— Self-motivated, works independently, reliable and has excellent business etiquette and time management
— Can manage grassroots challenges as well as conduct high level meetings at an international level
— Is interested in becoming an India Chapter Co-founder for Educate for Life and taking on corresponding organisational responsibilities (although this is not a pre-requisite to the Chief Operations Officer Role)
— Has an understanding of policy and implementation issues relating to rural education in India
— Has excellent spoken and written Hindi and English
— Has excellent computing skills including word, excel, and web-browsing
— Has significant experiencein data management,monitoringand evaluation
— Has values and vision which strongly align with ours
Job Overview:
Problem Statement: In areas like Mandwa –an indigenous Adivasi community in Southern Rajasthan–one in seven children die before their 5th birthday, 61% of children are malnourished and the female literacy rate is 10.7%. Historical attempts to address this have all failed
What can be done?
Inspirational centres that innovate,overcome developmental challenges and demonstrate how change is possible in these under-servedcommunities are desperately needed. These centreswouldact as hubs around which transformation occurs locally and from which best practice can spread across rural India.
Your Role:
— Be in charge of operations and responsible for turning our project – the Hunar Ghar Project (don’t know what this is? Read on) – into an inspiration centre with a global reputation
— Expand Hunar Ghar Project’s services to directly serve a population of 10,000 individuals
— Use the work happening at Hunar Ghar as a platform to champion the rights of under-served children across rural India
— Work closely with our Chief Executive Officer to develop Educate for Life’s India Chapter as a sustainable and well-run organisation
Roles and Responsibilities:
Transforming Hunar Ghar Project into an inspiration centre with a global reputation.
This will occupy ~35% of your time overall, but may require greater focus in year 1,and will involve:
— Workingwith our CEO to develop a long-term strategy to turn Hunar Ghar Project into a centre of rural education which isas exciting, influential and renowned as the Barefoot College in Tilonia, Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram or Tagore’s Shantiniketan
— Developing shared values, a community centred approachandstrongwork ethic across the Hunar Ghar Project team
— Coordinating annual and monthly planning and budgeting with the project management
— Working with project management and overseeing implementation of all operational areasincluding, recruitment, quality improvement, staff training, infrastructure development, student enrolment, community engagement etc.
— Recruiting senior team members, developing team capacity andensuring team well-being
— Developingmanuals and standard operating procedures for Hunar Ghar Project
— Conducting weekly checklist phone calls or meetings with all senior team members
— Engaging with external partners to bring expertiseand quality improvement to Hunar Ghar Project
— Inviting and hosting educational changemakers from across India for exposures and workshops at Hunar Ghar
Expanding Hunar Ghar Project’s services to serve a population of 10,000 people across a wide project area.
This willoccupy ~20% of your time overall, and will involve:
— Developing standard operating procedures and manuals that enable easy scale up of activities across project area
— Engaging external partners to provide complementary services and independent monitoring and evaluation of the project
— Expanding project team in line with need during scale up
— Overseeing orientation and training of new team members
— Engaging block,district and state education dignitaries as project partners
Championing the educational rights of children from under-served communities across rural India.
This will occupy ~15% of your time eventually, but will require less focus in year 1and will involve:
— Creating a rural education manifesto which outlines what good rural schools look like and highlights priority areas for improvement
— Supporting Educate for Life campaigns, by supporting production of campaign materials and raising awareness among the educational changemaker community
— Engaging with media, policy makers and educational networks and being a strong voice for the educational rights of rural children
Developing the India Chapter of Educate for Life into a sustainable and well-run organisation.
This will occupy ~30% of your time, and will involve:
— Regular networking with educational networks, operational partnersand government stake holders in Udaipur and across India.
— Engaging with existing and potential Educate for Life supportersand contributing to funding applicationsas part of our wider fundraising approach
— Documenting and sharing examples of best practice from Hunar GharProject across traditional and social media in coordination with our fundraising and communications team
— Overseeing high-quality process and impact evaluation of all Educate for Life projects for M&E purposes, reporting to Educate for Life trustees and sharing externally
— Taking a leadership role in developing organisational strategy and policies
— Ensuring good financial management of Hunar Ghar project including budgeting, internal checks and external audits
— Taking a leadership role in governance activities, including trustees reports and meetings, production of annual plans, reports, budgets and timelines
Remuneration: INR 50 – 80,000 /month dependent on experience
Application Process:
How to apply:
Please email your CV, Cover Letter, and the link to your video (donot send video as attachment) to careers@educateforlife.org.uk
— CV- PDF Format including referee details
— Cover Letter- Please ensure the cover letter is specific to this role
— Short Introductory Video The video should cover
(1) A little about yourself
(2) Why you want to work with Educate for Life
(3) How this role fits into your career plans.
It should last no more than two minutes.Upload the video to YouTube and share the link with us when you apply
After applying: If we are interested in your candidature, we will ask you to complete a written taskand subsequent interview. The final selection will be made after you have visited Hunar Ghar Project. If you have not heard from us within 3 weeks of your application, please assume your application has been unsuccessful
Further resources: Before applying please familiarise yourself with:
— The Educate for Life website and RBKS website
— The Educate for Life 7year Business Plan
— Videos on Educate for Life’s YouTube Channel
— Documents on Educate for Life’s resources page
Applications will be considered on an ongoing basis -we encourage you to apply ASAP to avoid disappointment
Last date to apply: 15 March 2017
Important Facts:
Leave:36 days in a year
Start date: Within 1 month of offering position
Contract: 12 months, with 3month probation period. We are looking to build a long-term relationship with someone who has the potential to co-found Educate for Life’s India Chapter. Strong outcomes using a well-managed process would lead to contract extension and discussions about Co-founder status.
Training: You will receive personal development mentorship in your role. You will receive training and be provided with the support necessary to grow and excel in your role.
Facilities: Offices in Udaipur and Swaroopganj (35km from Hunar Ghar). Offices include accommodation and selected mealsandbroadband wifi internet. When at Hunar Ghar you will stay in the Swaroopganj office. In Udaipur,accommodation is at your own cost.
Location: You should be where the work isandtravel accordingly. We anticipate that you will spend 3 days per week at Hunar Ghar on average and 2-3 days/week in Udaipur. In addition,you will travel to Delhi, Mumbai, or Ahmedabad 1-2 times per month for networking and meeting supporters and partners.
Reimbursement: We will reimburse travel for work between Udaipur, Swaroopganj, and Hunar Ghar. We will reimburse work communication-related costs. We will reimburse all work-related travel costs, such as for meetings outside of Hunar Ghar and office locations.
Equipment: You will need tohave your own smartphone and laptop.
Key partner: Rajasthan Bal Kalyan Samiti (RBKS) are our key implementation partner. Your role involves working closely with RBKS management and Hunar Ghar Project Team who are RBKS staff
Note: It would encouraged you to find out more about the role by calling Ed on +44 7940 257 935 or +91 99822 63129(message both numbers as Ed travels between UK and India)or organising a visit to Hunar Ghar Project.+44 number is WhatsApp number
About Educate for Life:
Educate for Life is a UK registered charity number 1114271. We are in the process of registering in India under the name Participate Foundation.
What Educate for Life is doing?
Hunar Ghar Projectactsas a centre of learning,a hub for local transformationand an example of what good rural education looks like. The school serves over 400 indigenous Adivasi childrenfrom one of India’s poorest communities and is achieving outstanding results using simple methodologies. By focussing on the holistic development of children, integrating community-wide health and social development activities and engaging partners from across India the project has developed a positive reputation across the region.
