Background

The UN Women (UNW), grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, the UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

UN Women plays an innovative and catalytic role in the State of Palestine since its inception in 1997. UN Women focuses its activities on one overarching goal, namely to support the implementation at the national level of existing international commitments to advance gender equality in line with the national priorities. In support of this goal and thoroughly taking into consideration the specificities of the Palestinian context, UN Women concentrates its efforts and interventions toward the realization of the following strategic goals: Engendering governance, peace and security; Supporting women's economic security and rights; and Promoting women’s rights and protection against violence.

As part of UN Women’s work on enhancing the economic empowerment of women in Palestine, UN Women is currently implementing, the following two programmes among other.

“Socially Responsible Women-Run School Canteens” (WRSC) project funded by the Norwegian Representative office in Jerusalem (2012 – 2015): aims at contributing to greater livelihood security and economic opportunities for Palestinian women.  The project targets 27 CBOs in its life cycle, managing a total of 128 schools.  The action learning methodology ensures that the implementing partner, UN Women, and the responsible parties: MA'AN Development Centre, and the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MoEHE) work in cooperation with each other with the ambition that this model will be implemented on a national scale within ten years.  The other project strategies include a more concentrated effort on a true sense of partnership; focusing on institutional sustainability for the women run CBOs; and creating a monitoring and evaluation system for the project that facilitates and documents progress towards sustainability. These strategies aim to contribute to the main goal of the project.

This three-year project was built on the previously implemented Phases I & II which went on between 2009 and 2012. The current phase of the project aims at enhancing the partnership with the MoEHE and MA'AN Development Centre.  It specifically works to support women run CBOs to provide healthy and nutritious food within the targeted schools.  It aims to build the capacities of the women's centres to allow them to effectively run the school canteens while ensuring they become sustainable through capacity building, awareness raising and income generating initiatives.

The outcomes and results of this programme are outlined below:

• Sustainable income for targeted women centres, is achived;
• Increased awareness focusing on nutrition in targeted areas;
• Networking amongst CBOs is enhanced;
• Spring Forward for Women Regional Programme (SFWP) – funded by the European Union and UN Women.

In response to calls for increasing need to support women’s economic empowerment and political participation, UN Women has been implementing the “Spring Forward for Women” Regional Programme (2012-2016) in several countries in the Southern Mediterranean region, including the State of Palestine. The programme (SFWP) aims to provide a mechanism to advance the economic empowerment of women and to assist them to reposition themselves in the political and decision making spaces so that they may have greater influence in shaping the future of their countries in the on-going democratic transition while protecting their previous gains. The programme works at multiple levels to respond to the specific support needs at the regional and country level, building on local initiatives in priority countries with the recognition that sustainable change must be locally-owned and led.

The overall objective of this programme is to promote the access and effective participation of marginalized women in economic and public life, by addressing the barriers that have impeded the access and engagement of marginalized women in these areas.

The specific objectives are as follows:

• To empower women politically in order to assure women's active engagement in decision making spaces;
• To empower women economically;
• To enhance regional knowledge and experience-sharing on women's political and economic rights.

Through its mandate, UN Women has a clear responsibility in communicating on and advocating for women’s human rights and empowerment. The achievements under both projects clearly support advocacy and awareness on women’s economic and political rights, as intends to as existing opportunities and benefit to the communities. The short documentary films for both projects will shed light on the concrete results and impact of the provided interventions on the lives of targeted women and communities, and amplifying women’s voices with the objective of advocating for their rights and improving their livelihoods and economic empowerment.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the direct supervision of UN Women Palestine Office Special Representative and in close collaboration with the women run school canteen project associate and Spring Forward Programme Associate, the film-maker will lead the process of producing two short documentary films through carrying out the following duties and responsibilities for each documentary film:

• Develop, in coordination with UN Women, the concept and script of a 10 minutes documentary film, including identifying stories to be documented through video (success stories, lessons learnt, achievements);
• Logistic preparation for the filming of the documentary, including contacting and settings date and time for interviews and filming and getting required authorizations of persons interviewed and filmed;
• Production of a 10 minutes documentary film based on the above mentioned concept and script;
• Arranging, compiling and editing footages in a documentary of 10 minutes length;
• Voice over narration will be in Arabic with English subtitles;
• Translation of all narrative and filmed interviews from Arabic to English or English to Arabic and subtitling of the documentary film;
• Provide UN Women with still-photograph taken during the filming process, for visibility and publicity needs;
• Provide UN Women with 5 DVD copies including subtitles and containing logo of UN Women.

In relation to the above mentioned work assignment.

Recruitment of the required professional production crew and equipment, as well as cost of transportation and others relevant costs related to the production of the documentary film is under the responsibility of the consultant.

The copyright will be with UN Women, Copyright © United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women. All rights reserved.

UN Women also owns the copyright to all film footages, irrespective of whether it has been used in the final film.

Timeframe

The assignment is expected to start by end of July 2015 and to be finalized by end of September 2015.

Key Deliverables:

• Script and work plan for the production and editing of both documentaries (2 weeks from signature of contract);
• Provision of the first edited versions, including English subtitles, of a 10 minutes documentary films on DVD format (first round of revision) for the WRSC project and the SFWP programme;
• Provision of final version of both 10 minutes documentaries, with Arabic narration and English subtitle, based on received comments from UN Women (5 DVD each) to UN Women (2 months from signature of the contract).

Competencies

Core value/guilding principle:

Integrity:

• Demonstrating consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.

Cultural Sensitivity/Valuing diversity:

• Demonstrating an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff;
• Demonstrating an international outlook, appreciating differences in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Core competenices:

Ethics and Values:

• Demonstrating / Safeguarding Ethics and Integrity.

Organizational Awareness:

• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.

Developing and Empowering People / Coaching and Mentoring:

• Initiative-taking; coaching and mentoring ability.

Working in Teams:

• Acting as a team player and facilitating team work.

Communicating Information and Ideas:

• Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively.

Self-management and Emotional intelligence:

• Creating synergies through self-control.

Conflict Management / Negotiating and Resolving Disagreements:

• Managing conflict.

Knowledge Sharing / Continuous Learning:

• Learning and sharing knowledge and encourage the learning of other.

Functional Competenices:

• Excellent communication skills;
• Good understanding and practice of the context in Palestine, gender issues and women empowerment;
• Understanding and knowledge of women’s rights and the context in Palestine is required;
• Film making/production skills;
• Working with women CBO’s and grass roots organizations;
• Working under pressure;
• Problem solving skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• A degree in film-making or any other related field.

Experience:

• At least 5 years of proven successful experience in filmmaking and/or documentary film for development projects. );
• At least 2 years of experience in producing documentaries with focus on social and human rights issues;
• Previous experience producing documentary films on gender equality and women’s empowerment issues is an advantage;
• Previous experience producing video film for international organizations is an added advantage.

Language:

• Fluency (both oral and written) in Arabic.

Only long-listed candidates will be contacted to provide samples of previous work including documentary films.