Project Officer

Background:

Africa Educational Trust (AET), following its merger in 2020 with Street Child implements programs focused on education, child protection, and livelihoods to support children and their caregivers in Laikipia, Nakuru, and Turkana counties in Kenya. Over the years, the organization has assisted more than 57,000 children, ensuring their safety, school enrolment, and active learning engagement. Street Child is a globally recognised children’s organisation with an annual turnover of around $25 million, operating in 18 countries.

Job Purpose:

The primary objective of this role is to lead the frontline implementation of active projects in Nakuru County. The role entails leading the implementation of Street Child/Africa Educational Trust (AET) projects in Nakuru County. The role holder will also supervise community volunteers engaged by the projects.

The Project Officer will report to the Programme Manager and provide overall administrative and programmatic support for planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating all AET/Street Child projects in Nakuru County.

Key Responsibilities:

Programme Management (60%):

• Manage ongoing projects in Nakuru County, ensuring timely and quality delivery in line with work plans, M&E frameworks, and expenditure plans.
• Unpack the project’s work plans and develop the work packages required to deliver the planned activities.
• Supervise the Community-Based Trainers/Mentors engaged by the different projects to support the delivery of School—and community-based activities.
• Lead community engagements, sensitisation of ongoing projects, and participatory identify and prioritise community needs.
• Liaise with the County Government of Nakuru and the National Government on coordinating project activities, implementation support, and government compliance requirements.
• Organise, disseminate and distribute awareness-raising resources through events and existing networks [including orientation sessions, workshops, community meetings].
• Lead planning and delivery of project trainings in Nakuru and manage training service providers engaged by the project.
• Collaborate with target ECD centres, Comprehensive and senior school heads of institutions, and Boards of Management (BoM) on implementing planned activities.
• Appropriately coordinate and Conduct Advocacy campaign & Awareness raising to increase partner attendance at key stakeholder meetings
• Compile quality monthly project reports, develop case studies, success stories and other ad-hoc reports and ensure timely submissions.

Operations Support (30 %):

• Budget Management: Support the programme manager in providing detailed activity breakdowns, funds requests and accounting for funds received.
• Procurement management: Develop procurement plans for all projects in Nakuru and raise Procurement requests.
• Contracts Management: Provide day to day Supervision of contracted service providers for all projects in Nakuru and Liaise with the programme manager, procurement and finance teams on progress made.
• Work with the Programme manager to oversee partner compliance and accountability.
• Support office management, ensuring Street Child and AET policies and procedures are properly introduced, implemented, and maintained.

Strategy, Growth, and Fundraising (10%):

• Build partnerships with the county government of Nakuru and identify joint initiatives to support the target communities.
• Support fundraising initiatives by identifying and documenting key areas for proposal development and conducting rapid context analysis in Nakuru County
• Represent Street Child and AET at County and Subcounty fora to build visibility and collaborative partnerships with donors, peers, and government departments.
• Support the mainstreaming of localisation strategy by supporting processes that include partner identification, capacity assessment, capacity building planning and implementation, compliance, and partner accountability.

Qualifications and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in Education, Social Studies, Economics, Agriculture or any related field
• Minimum of four years of work experience in implementing development projects and/or humanitarian sector programme delivery within Kenya.
• Experience in project management, particularly in education, child protection and livelihoods.
• Experience in the localisation of projects is desired.
• Experience in leading and facilitating community-based trainings and engagements.
• Experience in grants management (project design, budget preparation, expenditure tracking, monitoring and evaluation, reporting).
• Experience working in Nakuru County is desired.
• Experience engaging partners, County and National Government departments.

Skills & Abilities:

• Fluency in both English and Kiswahili, written and spoken, is required.
• Ability to effectively represent Street Child / AET in various public and private forums.
• Excellent interpersonal, listening and communication skills.
• Ability to positively influence others and create meaningful relationships.
• A self-starter with a strong results orientation and high levels of integrity, credibility and dependability.
• An energetic team player who can effectively collaborate and who can stand alone when necessary.
• Ability to blend well and engage with community members across the villages.