UN Women, 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, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action. 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 is also increasing its engagement in humanitarian response through interagency collaboration.

In the framework of the Syrian humanitarian response in Jordan, UN Women works at multiple levels to respond to the specific needs of Syrian women refugees and communities for livelihood support, building on their own initiatives and skills as well as addressing vulnerabilities as identified by themselves in their women centers. UN Women is implementing a multi-sectorial protection and support project in Za’atari and Azraq Refugee Camps through the creation of Women and Girls ‘safe spaces’ called Oasis.   The overall goal of the project is to empower vulnerable Syrian women refugees through increased access to self-reliance opportunities and meaningful engagement in community life to put in place the foundational cornerstones for increased self-reliance and durable solutions for the ‘day after’ in Syria.

The project pursues the following specific objectives: a) Create and sustain access to self-reliance opportunities for Syrian women refugees through cash for work activities b) Build a conducive environment for increasing Syrian women refugees’ active participation in decision making processes in the camp including meaningful engagement in community mobilizations efforts; c) Increase awareness on women rights and responsibilities for an inclusive, equitable and peaceful society through training, enhancement of life skills and other social cohesion approaches; this includes addressing prevention and response to sexual and gender based violence through awareness raising, trainings, and referrals to service providers of psychosocial, health, and legal services as appropriate.

To support these objectives, UN Women is seeking a Protection Assistant. The Protection Assistant will serve as a member of the Resilience and Empowerment Team within the UN Women Country Office and will be responsible for supporting the team’s work in the area of Protection.

The Protection Assistant will work under the supervision of the Field Officer and the guidance of the Head of the Unit.

Under the overall supervision of the Field Officer, the Protection Assistant will be responsible for:

Support protection related interventions as they relate to UN Women’s livelihoods engagement, which include:

• Integrate psycho social support activities into the Oasis C4W program, including establishing mechanisms for beneficiaries that prevent and mitigate the incidence of SGBV (establishing and facilitating groups, activities, awareness raising sessions);
• Provide case management, psycho social support intervention and trauma counselling to the UN Women program participants;
• Maintain confidential case files and refer to appropriate service providers where relevant;
• Regularly monitor the psycho social needs of the beneficiaries;
• Provide technical assistance, guidance and support to UN Women camp personnel on Protection issues.  Including capacity building on principles of psychological first aid and SGBV;
• Support partners in the integration of SGBV principles in livelihoods work, including building early warning systems for increased household violence and linking partners to service providers and referral networks;
• Monitor and document SGBV related trends, as they pertain to UN Women and partner/contractor work and take appropriate action;
• Document and update CO Jordan regularly with trend analysis, best practice and research on protection principles and programming; 
• Strengthen UN Women’s protection referral services in Za’atari and Azraq camp;
• Represent UN Women’s at coordination meetings such as the Protection, Child Protection and Mental Health Groups;
• Liaise with UNHCR on camp related protection issues and referrals. 

Support partner capacity development on issues of gender equality and women’s rights, ensuring that partner interventions equally address the needs of women men, girls and boys, and promote empowerment, which include:                 

• Develop and maintain up to date training materials – in Arabic – to be used for trainings on gender equality mainstreaming for humanitarian and development partners;
• Provide quarterly trainings to partners and/or ad hoc as requested;
• Provide technical assistance on issues of gender equality and humanitarian action/development programming as required.

 Support UN Women’s refugees and host communities’ related knowledge and communication production, which include:

• Support to product development for donors and resource mobilization;
• Support research and data analysis – including the production of in-house knowledge products on protection, SGBV and refugee related issues;
• Support to document programme learning, policy research and analysis;
• Support to undertake events.

 General project support:

• Contribute to the day to day operational and administrative tasks of the Oasis based on delegation of roles /responsibilities;
• Review the existing strengths, gaps and opportunities of the Oasis;
• Coordinate, liaise and offer operation support with identified implementing partners (responsible parties) to implement the relevant project component in the Oasis;
• Ensure internal synergy between the different components by actively participating in the regular weekly meetings and on spot information sharing and referrals;
• Participate in relevant trainings and workshops as required;
• Any other activities in support to the Recovery Specialist and to the Project Specialist.