Background

Violence against women, girls and members of the LGBTQIA+ community has emerged as one of the major challenges in post-apartheid South Africa. Time and again society is confronted with the extreme and insidious violence that haunts the lives of millions of South Africans. The result has been a pervasive feeling of fear and unease as all spaces - including those that should be safe havens - are touched by the blight of gendered violence. In recent years it has become increasingly apparent that schools and universities are spaces where gendered violence exists at an alarming rate - making it difficult for women and girls to learn in a safe and secure environment. This untenable reality gave birth to the Innovation Project !Pheza; in order to find creative solutions to the gendered violence in schools and on campuses.

UN Women in partnership with Higher Health has developed an online engagement platform for Uni- versities and Colleges for GBV and Wellness. An online platform prototype, Pheza has been developed  and is scheduled for finalisation, testing and roll out. The consultant will be responsible for moderation of content, developing content, testing and roll out of contents as well as facilitation to promote engagement with Pheza platform contents/ activations and HeForShe activations online and offline inside and outside of campuses.

Background to innovation project:

A human-centred design approach was used to identify possible innovative solutions to address gen- der-based violence on campuses. Using the ideathons model facilitated by a design thinking company, UN Women and Higher Health engaged 321 young women who are usually treated as helpless victims and males who are often the perpetrators of violence from across Universities and Vocational training colleges.

They came up with 31 ideas of possible solutions for addressing gender violence on campuses. The process aimed to change the usual approach to programme design which has focused on a prescribed model of response that focuses on victims and is based on preconceived ideas. Involving young women in finding solutions capitalised on their leadership potential and turned young women from being per- ceived as victims of rape to transformative leaders.

The best six ideas were selected out of the 31 and prototyped. One solution – an online platform, Pheza was agreed upon by stakeholders. A digital prototype has been developed as an ALPHA build and will need moderation and facilitation; of contents and engagements with the platform amongst the intended target audience beneficiaries. 

SGBV in Schools and Campuses:

Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is an increasingly recognised problem in schools and cam- puses all over the world. In South Africa, the issue of SGBV in tertiary institutions has come under spotlight in recent years, fuelled by student protests demanding their schools or campuses to take the problem seriously, especially the perceived leniency towards perpetrators. However, prevention of and response to SGBV at higher education institutions (HEIs) has in many instances been inadequate.

Evidence shows that effective interventions employ multiple methods, at multiple levels, with multiple actors (including men and boys) and in multiple sectors (schools, universities, communities, family/re- lationship and individual level), in a complementing manner. It is therefore crucial that duty bearers take this issue seriously and integrate their interventions into national policies on violence against women and girls.

Addressing the challenge also requires an effective and coordinated institutional response as well as a change in norms and attitudes, particularly of men. Gender Based Violence interventions mainly focus on response and support with little attention to prevention, especially primary prevention. Most actors continue to use traditional methods of programming, yet the changing global context requires adaptation and innovation including using technology.

UN Women South Africa Multi-Country Office (SAMCO) is working with partners including the Higher Education and Training HIV/AIDS Programme (HEAIDS) to contribute to the development and imple- mentation of innovative solutions to prevent sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in post-school- ing education and training centres.

It is against this background that UN Women and collaborating UN agencies seek to appoint a consultant to assist in finalising the development and rolling out if the Pheza App aimed at providing critical information and resources for students and learners.

About UN Women:

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, hu- man rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. UN Women South Africa Multi-Country Office (MCO) covers SACU countries: Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland.

UN Women has multiple initiatives on Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls (EVAW/G). To accelerate delivery on prevention of EVAW/G and promoting WEE, UN Women SAMCO seeks to develop innovative solutions with potential to assist with preparedness, prevention, protection and or response to violence and recovery of survivors on universities and colleges campuses.

Duties and Responsibilities

!Pheza, Enough is enough! Imagine a life and a world that has not experienced gender violence. What does that world look like? What does that life feel like? !Pheza, We can make our world a reality. The !Pheza platform is an act towards that attainable goal, that seeks to ensure the change society needs and desires becomes the lived experience and reality of all women and men through (i) producing awareness invoking content  (ii) enabling and facilitating access to mindset changing content (iii) creating a digital environment that will transcend into the real lived environments and experiences of audiences so as for them to change their behaviours and begin to protect the rights, dignity and equality of women. In short the Pheza initiative goals are to cultivate (i) a bias to action (ii) promote awareness and inform adolescent and young women, boys and young men of the risks and dangers of gender based violence; most importantly how to solve for the problems and challenges created by gender based violence and (iii) bring about behaviour change across all spheres of society.

Scope of work/ duties and responsibilities:

The associated role and responsibilities of the assignment is to:

• Develop content for the Pheza platform in the prescribed format and content make up and;
• Moderate contents and engagements on the platform amongst the intended target audience as well as provide guidance and oversight amongst beneficiary stakeholders in their engagements with the Pheza platform online and offline as it relates to content production and engagement;
• Work with creative personnel, organizational partners to create, maintain and moderate creative text, audio-visual interactive materials and contents used by social platform/website to engage audiences on sexual & gender-based violence thematic subject matter;
• work assignments entail editing and proofing for appropriateness of tone, style, and subject matter in line with organizational mandate as well as scheduling content. Review not only written suggestions, but also video and sound content (such as podcasts). The incumbent will periodically also be required to contribute to design, facilitate design output as well as workshops on the contents developed amongst audiences and constituent stakeholders.

This activity will constitute testing of the anti-gbv content curatorial platform and channels known as the ‘Pheza platform’ and will contribute towards finalization of the anti-gbv content curatorial online platform/ Pheza platform and channels towards developing the beta build and scope of activities.

Deliverables: 

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity;
• Professionalism.

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
• Accountability;
• Effective Communication;
• Inclusive Collaboration.

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

Functional Competencies:

• Possesses the ability to work independently, under pressure and meet deadlines;
• Good knowledge of technical area;
• Experience in translation and editing of research documents.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree  in Social Science, Communication, Information Technology, Gender or Law or related fields

Experience:

• At least 5 years experience in moderating social media accounts dealing with social issue/ human rights advocacy subject matter and engaging audiences on and through social media digital platforms;
• Experience in building online digital audiences and constituencies who actively engage messages through social media channels on human rights subject matter. The candidate should have at least three years demonstrable skills in content development and curation for digital platforms;
• The candidate should have an experience and understanding of how to conduct  activations and facilitation of workshops & mobilization engagements amongst target audiences;
• The candidate should have an understanding of youth, gender and online digital communities;
• The candidate should have experience in creative writing, creating original copy.

Language and other skills:

• Good command of English both written and oral.
• Computer literacy and ability to effectively use office technology equipment, IT tools, ability to use Internet and email.

Application Process: 

The application should include:

• Personal History Form (P-11 form) - including past experience in similar assignments; can be downloaded at http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment  a signed copy should be submitted;
• Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment, please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment;
• Candidates should have the ability to quickly produce degree certificates and medical certification (of good health) should they be short-listed in consideration of the consultancy post.

Note:

• UN WOMEN is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

  In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.