Internship support the implementation and monitoring of schools as zones of peace, UNICEF Burundi, Bujumbura

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, a Champion

 

Context

50% of Burundian children are below the age of 18. With a powerful growth, Burundi could transform its youth bulge into an incredible economic force. To do so, the Burundian Government undertook a large-scale education reform to ensure all Burundian children have access to a solid basic education from age 6 to 14. This has already produced staggering achievement in terms of equal access to education of girls and boys. However, faced with a socio-economic crisis since 2015, the Burundian Government is currently struggling to finalise its Fundamental Education reform and provide quality education to all Burundian children.

UNICEF has been working in Burundi since the mid-60s with many national and international NGOs, such as Handicap International, Play International, Hope International, to tackle challenges facing the education sector. So far, UNICEF has shown a real comparative advantage in working with the Minister of Education (MoE) to support qualitative inclusive education (return of adolescent mothers to school, building access to schools for children with disabilities, reintegrating internally displaced children and refugees) as well as in working on the ground to build and renovate schools, build latrines and bring water access to schools, provide large amounts of supplies such as school kits and school manuals. In line with the Sustainable Development Goal #4 UNICEF strives to ensure that basic, free, equitable and quality education is accessible to all Burundian children.

 

How can you make a difference?

To build the resilience of school children, UNICEF has led a programme to build Schools as Zones of Peace. 50 schools, in three of the poorest provinces, have benefited from this programme so far. To strengthen its action UNICEF has created an Education Watch Initiative platform, in collaboration with child protection partners, to detect and reintegrate dropout children in the above-mentioned Schools as Zones of Peace. The programme aims at supporting children, teachers, directors and parents to protect their schools from security hazards, sensitize children to gender-based violence, hygiene to combat cholera as well as the importance of school attendance/completion. To strengthen the impact of such an initiative, UNICEF leads a school construction programme whereby it builds new schools in line with the Fundamental Education reform. UNICEF built a total of 150 classrooms in 2017-2018. It further reinforces its action by cooperative with the hygiene and water sector, thereby, building/renovating latrines and water points. Around 30 000 children have already benefited from new latrines and water points in the first half of 2018. It further strengthens its support to the MoE by supporting the edition, printing and distribution of textbooks as well as school kits to alleviate education costs and encourage parents to maintain their children at school. Nearly 4 million children benefitted from the Back to School campaign in 2016-2017. In addition, UNICEF is currently building a model inclusive school and training centre, for inclusive education, in the capital city Bujumbura. It will be operating as from August 2018 and will serve as a centre to train future teachers for handicapped children. UNICEF continues to support the training of specialised educators for preschool. It further provides them with adapted school tables and chairs as well as teaching and learning material. UNICEF, in a context such as Burundi, can really make a difference in building the resilience of children, populations and systems. This is what UNICEF aims at attaining with the Schools as Zones of Peace initiative to be scaled up from 2019 onwards.  The selected intern will be supporting the implementation and monitoring of schools as zones of peace. This will require liaison with our implementing partners, conduct of relevant refresher trainings and regular visits to the field to monitor progress towards results. The candidate will also contribute to the conceptualization of UNICEF’s resilience programming.

 

To qualify as a/an [champion or advocate] for every child you will

• Be enrolled in an advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) ;
• A relevant background in Education, Humanitarian Aid and Development, Social Sciences or any related field ;
• Exposure to, work, volunteer, or internship experience to developing country context and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset ;
• Fluency in French and English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

 

For every Child, you demonstrate

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

The technical competencies required for this post are good analytical capacity, excellent communication, team work and drive for results.

View our competency framework at http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/files/UNICEF_Competencies.pdf

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse, and on any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.