1. Background

Tales and historical characters are part of each society cultural heritage, disseminated through the generations via oral, pictorial, and written tradition. They play a great role in conveying folklore elements, root values and norms including gender norms. For children, tales constitute an entire part of their socialization process stimulating their imagination, creativity and enabling their identification with characters. While tales allow them to temporarily escape from reality, they have a strong educational power helping girls and boys to grow and develop their personality.

Marking the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action adoption and in line with Generation Equality Forum, expected in 2021 as an intergenerational and intersectional gathering of women’s activists to create a renewed momentum and accelerate progress towards women’s rights and leaving no-one behind, UN Women ECA RO pursues the efforts to vehicle positive change and promote gender equality by devoting a modern fairy tales’ collection targeting at young readers and citizens of tomorrow.

The world is dramatically changing by new technologies, industrial revolutions, and technological progress. It is even ironic that as the COVID-19 pandemic forces people’s physical disconnection, it is also showing how people are all connected by histories, literature and social interactions which are grounded on common values of humanity. Despite all crisis related consequences which the COVID-19 brings, there are also many positive and inspiring changes happening as a result of the pandemic. It highlights a need for reflection and actions to bring gender equality and human rights perspectives into approaches and practices for bringing up a new generation which is expected to live free of discrimination and violence in equal world from 2030.

UN Women ECA RO initiates a feminist stories and fairy telling campaign with an aim to support a dialogue to change the ways society thinks about women’s and girls’ roles, human potential, and rights. The initiative is expected to expose the role of fairy tales in the cultural struggle over gender equality and feminism. For this purpose, the "forgotten" narratives which highlight shifting attitudes towards the role of women and girls will be applied. We strongly believe that such stories will tell a young generation a great deal about changing attitudes to women, gender equality and feminism. The stories that children grow up with are vitally important in shaping who they are as adults.

UN Women ECA RO’s initiative has brought together feminist writers in our first workshop to re-work familiar fairytales as well as to bring forgotten women’s characters and stories to overcome an oppressive treatment and historical silencing of women by the patriarchy.

Key milestones and timeline for the initiative implementation are as follows;

• 25 Stories for 25 Years Collection is launched on the 11th of October 2020;
• A feminist writers’ peer review group (collective) is established to support the development of the stories;
• A call for expression of interest was sent to all participating writers to submit their stories by the end of October 2020;
• 2 x writer workshops are delivered since September 2020 and one more workshop is planned by March 2021
• The first 5 will be selected and will be illustrated and launched in March 2021 with an associated Communications strategy and reader’s reflection tools;

• A further call for stories is put out in November to writers across the region, all other stories are being reviewed ?and considered for inclusion in the 25 Stories for 25 Years Collection (these stories will be further developed until May 2021)
• All stories selected for the 25 Stories for 25 Years Collection will be illustrated and scaffolded with reader’s critical reflection tools;
• E-library of feminist stories books will be created and share with UN Women offices and partners to use

ECA RO is looking for experienced International Consultant Illustrators to support illustrating our modern fairy tales’ collection.

2. Scope of Work and Specific Tasks

The illustrators will work under the overall guidance of the Project Coordinator, and in close collaboration with and the Fairy Tales initiative team and the writers. The illustrators will provide illustrations for 25 Stories in total for the collection.

The following components are required from the illustrators:

• There will be 25 stories in the collection which will require between 1 and 3 illustrations per story. The illustrations should have a contemporary feel, reimagining and revisioning the traditional concept of fairy tales and reflecting their transformative role in changing gender stereotypes about women’s and girl’s roles in societies and
• 1 x illustration is also required for the cover of the collection.

The illustrator will prepare illustration for the first 5 stories and the cover of the collection by the end of Mid-March 2021 and will complete the other 20 stories by the beginning of June 2021.

3. Principles

• Illustrations should be positive and empowering and reflect the project’s principle of transforming gender stereotypes and reimagining fairy tales to support the achievement of gender equality;
• Illustrations should aim for a large target audience, and should be specifically meaningful for the target audience of the fairy tales collection (8-12 year olds) and also for UN Women’s larger audience (young people and adults, mainly interested in gender issues but also observers, civil society, feminists, donors)
• The designs of the materials should be consistent with UN Women Communications guidelines
• UN Women will hold non-exclusive world rights in perpetuity of all designed submissions and products.
• UN Women will own the copyrights to the illustrations.

4. Deliverables and Timeline

5. Contract supervision

The illustrators will work in close cooperation with the Project Coordinator, and in close collaboration with and the Fairy Tales initiative team and the writers. 

6. Schedule of payments

Payment in full upon final submission and satisfactory submission of deliverables. All deliverables must meet the specified requirements and be signed off as acceptable by the Hiring Manager

7. Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability
• Creative Problem Solving
• Effective Communication
• Inclusive Collaboration
• Stakeholder Engagement?
• Leading by Example

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies:?http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf

8. Required Skills and Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in graphic design, animation, and/or visual arts. A Technical degree in combination of two years of additional relevant experience may be accepted in lieu of the bachelor’s degree.

Experience

• Minimum 5 years of professional experience in illustration, animation, and /or graphic design;
• Minimum 5 years of experience in illustration work, for children’s books; and
• Experience in creating powerful illustrations that transformgender stereotypes

Languages and Other Skills

• Proficient in written and oral English;
• Russian is an asset;
• Extensive experience in a full range of graphic design software, including Adobe Suite/CC such as Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, After Effects etc.; and
• Solid understanding of printing and production matters and knowledge of different formats for printing

9. Application procedure:

The following documents should be submitted as part of the application:

• Cover letter to include a brief overview in English (unedited text) about which of your previous experiences makes you the most suitable candidate for the advertised position.
• P11 with past experience in similar assignments; can be downloaded at http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment, a signed copy should be submitted.
• Financial Proposal (Specifying a total lump sum amount for the tasks specified in this Terms of Reference). The financial proposal shall include a breakdown of this lump sum on a daily basis.
• Previous Work - The candidate should provide a portfolio of graphic design, illustrations, publications and animation work completed in the last two years.

10. Evaluation of applicants:

Consultants will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of qualifications and financial proposal. Contract will be awarded to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

1. Responsive/compliant/acceptable, and
2. Having received the highest score out of below defined technical and financial criteria.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for financial evaluation.

Financial Evaluation (30%) – max. 30 points:

The maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal is allocated to the lowest price proposal. All other price proposals receive points in inverse proportion. A suggested formula is as follows:

p = 30 (µ/z)

Using the following values:

p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated

µ = price of the lowest priced proposal

z = price of the proposal being evaluated