Community Organizing Officer

ABOUT LAST MILE HEALTH

Founded by survivors of Liberia’s civil war, Last Mile Health (LMH) is committed to saving lives in the world’s most remote villages. Working in remote jungle communities cut off from even basic life-saving health services, LMH is building a health system that reaches everyone—by bringing health care to villagers’ doorsteps. We train community members to be health practitioners for their villages and then we connect them with rural health clinics to offer every person access to the care they deserve. These Frontline Health Workers are able to prevent, diagnose, and treat the top ten most life-threatening health conditions.

Over the past six months, a historic outbreak of the Ebola virus has devastated Liberia and has tragically demonstrated that weak, inequitable health systems leave everybody vulnerable. To match a historic crisis with a historic response, LMH is partnering with Boston-based, Partners in Health (PIH) to launch a significant expansion of LMH’s model, integrated with a package of Ebola treatment and hospital strengthening efforts led by PIH. The goal of this project is to deploy a comprehensive health system—from life-saving essential primary care services in remote communities all the way to strong inpatient Ebola and tertiary care in regional hospitals—for approximately 150,000 rural Liberians, and to work with the Liberian government to sustain that system and expand it to the rest of the country over the coming years.

GENERAL POSITION SUMMARY:

As part of LMH’s Frontline Health Systems (FHS) team, the Community Organizing Officer drives strategy for engaging communities served by LMH’s model for rural health delivery. S/he operates with the overarching goals of (1) increasing local ownership over community health initiatives (2) building village leadership capacity for managing health infrastructure improvement projects and (3) soliciting and utilizing local expertise to inform program design. With the severity of the current Ebola outbreak in Liberia, highly effective community engagement and social mobilization are crucial for mounting a comprehensive response. The Community Organizing Officer will play a pivotal role in refining LMH’s Ebola intervention at the household and village level, while concurrently bolstering community-driven health promotion initiatives intended to persist as part of a sustainable rural health system.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS:

Communication and Mobilization for Health

1. Drawing upon best practices in public health, marketing/communications, and anthropology, manage a comprehensive strategy for mobilizing communities to engage in health-promoting activities.
2. Work with M&E to identify existing village-level structures and resources through which communication and mobilization can occur, including identifying potential roles of trusted stakeholders such as village elders, women’s groups, religious groups, and traditional healers.
3. With support from curriculum/health education staff members, develop an innovative, multi-pronged communication strategy to engage communities in Ebola education and response planning, utilizing a combination of strategies including of participatory meetings, advertising/mass media, folk media, counseling, and decision-maker engagement.
4. Work with communities to develop and test community-led referral programs to effectively transport community members to the healthcare facility for health emergencies and facility delivery

Community Organizing for Infrastructure Improvements

1. Work with FHS Director and FHS Operations Officer in developing community-driven solutions to logistical challenges that hinder health delivery in remote villages, such as poor roads and bridges.
2. Devise programming intended to build capacity of local leaders to plan and execute their own infrastructure development projects.
3. Work with Partnerships team to engage NGO and government actors in addressing public health infrastructure needs identified by communities, such as latrines and pumps.
4. Execute programming intended to mobilize rural Liberians in articulating and advocating for their right to health care and basic sanitation, transportation, and communication infrastructure.

Implementation Assistance and Quality Assurance at Scale

1. Package community mobilization processes, tools, and trainings in such a way that they can be easily implemented by Last Mile Health’s team for launching new sites.
2. Provide advising and support to teams implementing community engagement strategies.
3. Ensure interventions, as designed, are rooted in an understanding of local behavioral, cultural, and social context to maximize impact of programming.
4. Develop systems to monitor whether particular interventions and messages should be tailored for specific communities and regions.
5. Work with Monitoring and Evaluation team to develop data systems to evaluate whether community engagement tools and processes are implemented successfully.
6. Given the current Ebola outbreak, work with M&E to ensure sensitive information is collected from community members safely and effectively; assist with conflict resolution as needed.

Participatory Programming

1. Design systems and tools to efficiently facilitate community participation and input in the design of LMH interventions.
2. With the goal of maximizing the effectiveness of LMH’s interventions, work with Monitoring and Evaluation team to actively gather information from communities on obstacles, successes, and opportunities relating to LMH’s programs, both before and after new interventions are rolled out.

REPORTING RELATIONSHIPS:

REPORTS DIRECTLY TO: Frontline Health Systems Director

WORKS DIRECTLY WITH: Partnerships team, Monitoring and Evaluation team, FHS Operations Team

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:

• BA/S or equivalent in relevant field required, such as anthropology, social work, public health, or social science; MA/S preferred.
• At least 3 years experience in community engagement programming, preferably in remote or resource-limited settings OR completion of masters degree in related field plus 1 year of work experience
• High level of initiative to innovate in resource-limited settings
• Generosity of spirit, cultural sensitivity, diplomacy
• Excellent communication skills, including across cultures and backgrounds
• Previous work experience in Liberia or West Africa preferred, but not required
• Willingness to travel into the field, spend occasional nights in rural communities with few amenities, and travel by motorbike for field work
• Commitment to health and social justice
• Experience working closely with employees recruited in a post-conflict or resource-poor setting
• Flexibility and ability to handle multiple tasks at one time in time-sensitive manner
• Comfort working with a casual but high-performing team.
• High degree of English fluency required

Commitment: Minimum 12-month commitment (24 months preferred)

Location: Zwedru, Liberia Compensation: Salary commensurate with experience; benefits including R&R and housing support

How to apply:

Applications accepted until October 24, 2014 via JobScore