Historique

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 Universities 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 referred to as Pheza:

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 maintenance, feature, functional and scope alteration as well as integration of interactive contents; in line with technical response digital solution to be determined and specified by the project stakeholder partner. The digital content curatorial platform referred to as ‘!Pheza’.

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 of content through !Pheza online and offline platforms and channels aimed at providing critical information and resources for students, learners and administrators.

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, human rights, humanitarian action, 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.

Devoirs et responsabilités

Objectives of the assignment:

!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 of ending violence against women, ensuring the change society needs and desires becomes the lived experience and reality of all women and men through:

• Producing awareness invoking content;
• Enabling and facilitating access to mindset changing content and engagements;
• Creating a digital environment that will transcend into the real lived environments and experiences of audiences.

The activities above contribute towards changing behaviours and protecting the rights, dignity, freedoms and equality of women. The !Pheza initiative will cultivate:

• A bias to action;
• 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;
• Bring about behaviour change across all spheres of society through the interactive platform solutions developed.

Scope of work/ duties and responsibilities:

The current status of the innovation project seeks to acquire the services of an adequately qualified and skilled candidate who will perform technical as well as advisory duties and obligations. The responsibilities attached to the role to be filled are:

• Technical maintenance of the Pheza platform;
• Advise and scope the growth and development of the Pheza platform aligned to anchor partner technical? response development requirements;
• Create interactive solutions/content development working with creative personnel, organizational partners;
• This activity will constitute testing of the Pheza platform alpha build and will contribute towards finalization of the Pheza platform and the beta build and its technical infrastructure requirements.

The consultant will participate in engagements within a team who have a diverse skill set within the women’s and human rights advocacy sector in UN Women (SAMCO) and interact with project initiative partners on the best practice and method to implementing and integrating concepts and existing technologies into Pheza.

• The consultant?should be able to work with creative personnel and organizational partners to build/create, integrate and  maintain interactive contents  for the digital content curatorial platform and associated platforms. They should be adept at interpreting concept briefs and advise on technical requirements to achieve and deliver on the project initiative goals and technical scope requirements. This will aid towards innovation and research into how to implement scope feature and functional specifications towards developing the Pheza;
• Work assignments entail fixes, testing and maintenance of existing platform build. The candidate will be responsible for liaising with the !Pheza platform content developers and the technical partners to develop interactive contents and !Pheza content features as per scope developed during the Alpha testing phase towards beta release and post the beta release;
• The platform partners and stakeholders will post the beta build define a feature and functional scope that requires technical development and integration of additional features to the platform and across platforms; which the candidate will contribute towards through offering advisory services specifying the scope and build requirements of the technology as agreed as well as developing some solutions that will be specified in an agreement based on the scope. This will constitute a contribution to scoping of the deliverables from stakeholder partner inputs into a technical scope for technical solution development and integration of existing digital solutions and new solutions arising out of sgbv advocacy curriculum work requirements to be determined by the partner;
• Testing of the platform technologies and their maintenance is a key responsibility. Developing additional features and functionality of the Pheza platform as determined by the scope. Coding, testing and ensuring the build meets functional and quality assurance expectations;
• Innovation and research into how to implement scope feature and functional specifications;
• In scoping activities and deliverables with project line manager the candidate must submit a report on the performance and use of the platform as a tool for curating content, disseminating and the distribution of platform contents and messages across digital platforms. The candidate will also make recommendation submissions on how to improve efficiency of existing technical infrastructure and receive inputs with doing so with respect to design which they will be expected to implement;
• Maintain and develop backend content engagement data tracking features and functionalities linked to Pheza platform and associated contents across other platform associated digital channels;
• Submit a monthly technical report of milestones based on monitoring and evaluation hardware, software, databases and licenses, maintenance, and projections of the platform and make recommendations on future needs and requirements for sustainability purposes; so as to ensure compliance with policies and other rules as per required for !Pheza through various Pheza platforms and channels.

Deliverables:

The Technology and Gamification Developer is expected to deliver the following results:

Compétences

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

Functional Competencies:

• Ability to administer administrative processes and transactions;
• Ability to perform work of confidential nature and handle a large volume of work;
• Good knowledge of administrative rules and regulations;
• Good IT and web based management skills.

Qualifications et expériences requises

Education:

• Bachelors degree in Communication, Information Technology or related fields.

Experience and skills:

• Must have experience in interpreting concept briefs and development of a technical scope requirements to develop digital functional solutions. Experience as a technical support resource to developing digital solutions and curation for digital platforms;
• Experience in Advisory and consulting services on technical requirements
• Atleast 5 years experience in the field of information technology communications developer of solutions and contents
• Experience in Developing interactive contents, composing and integration of digital contents onto digital web based platforms
• Experience in Developing databases,? data collection features and functional digital tools that track engagement, generate reports and feedback on interactions on Pheza digital platforms.
• Experience in Maintenance of platforms/ websites and integrating contents into digital platforms.

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.