Seeking a highly skilled facilitator, program coordinator and community builder to invest in our community in Kenya. This role will be on the EWB Fellowships Team.
The EWB Fellowships Team recruits, trains and supports the fellows who work with EWB Ventures and partner organizations in sub-Saharan Africa and Canada. We currently run three Fellowship programs:
- The Long-Term Fellowship: a 1 year+ fellowship program that places highly skilled young Canadian professionals with diverse skill-sets in our ventures and partner organizations across sub-Saharan Africa
- The Junior Fellowship: an 12-month leadership development program for Canadian university students that includes a 3-month placement in our ventures and partner organizations in Canada and sub-Saharan Africa
- The Kumvana Fellowship: a 5-week leadership development program in which social entrepreneurs from across sub-Saharan Africa are hosted by EWB chapters across Canada
This role involves supporting all three programs.
Position
Roughly 100 EWB Fellows participate in short and long-term Fellowship programs in East, West and Southern Africa every year. Your opportunity is to take this community of fellows to the next level of impact, ensuring EWB Fellows are making significant contributions to the impact of the EWB Ventures and partners they work with, while anchoring them in a life-long trajectory of leadership pursuing social change.
Your core responsibility will be to support EWB Fellows so that they may grow as changemakers and have the greatest impact possible on their Venture or partner organization.
As such, your role will be to:
1) Track performance of fellowships with the support of the Fellowships Program Manager based in Toronto and Senior East African Fellow Support Coordinator based in Kampala.
(2) Develop EWB Fellows as leaders – You will play a crucial role in supporting the personal and professional development of EWB Fellows. This includes:
– Designing, planning and delivering learning experiences that help to build the leadership and impact of EWB Fellows in Africa
– Developing content, tools and resources to enable EWB Fellows to grow as leaders that create systemic change
– Providing logistical support to Fellows (visas, accommodations, etc.)
– Providing support in measuring the effectiveness of our Fellowship programs
(3) Support our ventures and partner organizations, including:
– Regularly meeting to discuss Fellow performance and support
– Evaluating organizations for potential Fellow investment
– Tracking organizational progress for Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) purposes
– Mediating conversations between Fellows and ventures and partner organizations
(4) Support the health, safety and wellness of EWB Fellows, including:
– Continuously implementing and improving health, safety and wellness policies and procedures
– Helping to set a culture of proactivity with regards to health and safety
– Identifying and tracking health and safety risks
– Managing crisis incidents involving EWB personnel in Africa with support from the EWB office in Toronto
(5) Foster the EWB and Canadian volunteer community in Kenya. This will include:
– Organizing and facilitating retreats
– Ensuring high quality communication between Fellows, as well as between Fellows and
the rest of the organization
– Supporting Kumvana Fellow recruitment
You will report to both the Senior Fellow Support Coordinator for East Africa based in Kampala, and the Fellowships Program Manager based in Toronto.
Salary will be comparable to similar coordinator-level roles within the nonprofit sector in East Africa. You will also receive an annual professional development budget, health insurance and 3 weeks of vacation each year.
Please ensure your cover letter answers the following questions:
– What draws you to EWB and this role specifically?
– Why are you the ideal candidate for this role?
– What do you think will be the most challenging part of this role for you?
Required Skills
You are driven to enable others to stretch beyond what they believe is possible in order to enhance the impact they can have on the world. First and foremost, you are passionate about people. You have a deep understanding of the type of skills and tools needed to create system-level change. You have experience coaching leaders and facilitating transformational learning experiences.
You are passionate about minimizing and managing the risks involved in our Fellowship programs. You have a natural instinct for supporting people through tough situations — you know the right things to say and the right actions to take. You are also committed to self-improvement and seek out feedback.
You are entrepreneurial, self-motivated and ambitious about the type of change you seek to create in the world. You have demonstrated your commitment to social change through previous work or volunteer experiences. You have a bias to action: you don’t want to stop at strategy, you want to get your hands dirty and start executing on it right away.
Ideally, you will also have the following qualifications:
– 3-5 years work experience
– Undergraduate degree in International Development, Business or Management, Gender Studies, Psychology, Social Work, or a related field. Legal education, specifically in immigration law is a huge asset but certainly not required
– A keen interest in and understanding of social entrepreneurship and leadership
– Strong logistics and communications skills
– Facilitation experience with intercultural groups
– Extensive knowledge of Kenya and Kenyan culture – Kenyan applicants will be given preference but all nationalities will be considered
– Extensive experience working with Canadians
– Willingness to travel within and between EWB’s countries of operation (Ghana, Côte D’Ivoire, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Zambia, Malawi and Canada)
– Training in risk assessment, risk mitigation and emergencies management (robbery, sexual assaults, gender issues, kidnapping, etc.) an asset
– First Aid and Mental Health First Aid Training an asset
– Experience working in a nonprofit or social enterprise in Canada and/or Africa an asset
– Fluency in French an asset
– Previous experience with long-term overseas volunteer programs an asset
Company
Engineers Without Borders Canada (EWB) is a Canadian non-governmental organization (NGO) that invests in people and ventures to create a thriving and sustainable world. Bolstered by its network of 36 chapters and 1600 members, EWB provides seed funding, talent and mentorship to social enterprises throughout sub-Saharan Africa. For more information on EWB, explore EWB’s website.
What’s it like to work at EWB?
EWB is a high-performing team-based work environment. We have over 25 staff members working out of our Toronto-based office and many more based around Canada and in Africa. Our organizational culture regardless of where you are based is one of passion, entrepreneurship, thoughtfulness, dedication and hard work. We have a strong commitment to excellence and achieving results. Our leaders, staff, and volunteers are generally young; this manifests in our dynamic and positive outlook.
We blend a passion to change the world with pragmatism.
EWB embraces diverse cultures, heritages, experiences and opinions in our efforts to enrich our staff team and foster inclusive decision making. We are committed to providing inclusive, barrier-free employment that are free from discrimination, and to hiring diverse candidates. Please let us know if you require any accommodation throughout the application process, and we will do our best to accommodate.
