There’s an urgent global need to improve early childhood care and education for preschoolers in hard-to-reach rural communities.
• The dominant ECD approach for this age bracket is to invest in a professional workforce & formal pre-primary provision. However, whilst important, this approach does not offer a complete solution. It tends to prioritise “schooling” over learning and does not cater for holistic child development and wellbeing. This approach also requires significant infrastructure, personnel, training, is unaffordable and is slow to scale particularly to rural settings.
We believe that marginalised rural parents are the solution to the ECD crisis. We are seeking to bring about a paradigm shift in the sector so that more effort and investment is spent on community and parent run ECD solutions. We can showcase how to tap the enormous potential of rural parents as ECD providers. 92% of parents in our programme have less than 2 years of primary education. They are not paid for their work on the programme, nor are they provided with materials or infrastructure. We prove that with lighttouch support parents and communities are willing and able to bring about significant improvements in their children’s development. A further benefit of focusing on parents is that it provides opportunity to improve holistic child development, including early learning, health and socio-emotional skills as well as improving parental wellbeing and empowerment. Additionally, increasing parental awareness and involvement generates demand for ECD services/investment and strengthens existing efforts.
• We are seeking a passionate and entrepreneurial Advocacy and Systems Change Director who will disseminate our learnings and approaches widely and influence global ECD system, practices and policies, generating benefit for millions of children and parents.
Main Duties and Responsibilities
• We have already started developing our advocacy & systems change strategy. This is likely to involve a) raising awareness among key policy-makers and investors of our policy alternative b) generating best practice and encouraging uptake of our ideas/approaches and methodology. You will help refine this strategy and will be responsible for delivering it
• Disseminate our learnings, ideas, approaches and evidence by creating compelling decks, thought-pieces, presentations, blogs, submissions that showcase the programme and our learnings to the relevant audience & key stakeholders
• Strengthen our relationships with senior global ECD stakeholders and represent Lively Minds at conferences, round tables, events, working groups with senior global
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• Keep abreast of and engage with developments and research in the global ECD space, identifying where we can contribute ideas and learnings, and sharing learnings that may improve our practices
• Support government engagement teams in Ghana and Uganda to develop advocacy positions and objectives when they attend meetings/working groups
• Work closely with our Monitoring & Evaluation team to communicate evidence that we are generating
• Work closely with our Fundraising Team to raise awareness of our brand and organisation
• Build a strong understanding of our operations and ways of working and showcase these externally
You may be assigned any other responsibility in agreement with your line manager, incontribution to Lively Minds work and in recognition of your experience and skills. It is therefore expected for staff to be flexible and willing to contribute to the work of the wider team.
To succeed in this role, you will be
• You are an entrepreneurial leader. You can work with minimal support and resources, and find creative opportunities to achieve goals and seek out new opportunities
• You are an excellent communicator. Able to create compelling, high quality written material and able to command the attention of senior stakeholders through effective verbal communication
• You are highly analytical. You will need to keep abreast of the policy and research developments and identify ways to further our advocacy and system change goals
• You are able to deliver high quality work at pace and recover quickly from set-backs
• You are willing to be hands-on and get on top of details. You will be co linemanaging a communications officer and graphic designer. But will need to be willing to take on all aspects of the role – from strategy, detailed planning, developing product to booking your flights to conferences.
• Be comfortable working in a start-up environment. We have developed innovative approaches to our programme and to our internal systems. We work as a multidisciplinary team and are non-hierarchical and highly participatory. You will need to be adaptive, agile and open to new ideas, processes and ways of working.
Experience and Skills
Essential Experience and Skills
• Proven experience of developing and delivering an advocacy strategy/bringing about policy or systems change
• Familiar with policy, funder and/or research community in ECD or closely related
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• At least 7 years experience in a policy or advocacy role
• At least 2 years experience as leader of a team or function
Desirable Experience and Skills
• Advanced degree in ECD or related field
• Experience working in sub Saharan Africa
• Familiar with Ashoka system-change tools and methodology
• Ideally have experience working either for a policy team/think-tank/funder/bilateral or multilateral funder
You will be expected to perform against the Lively Minds Competencies.
If this sounds like you, please send your CV and cover letter to jobs@livelyminds.org by
11:59pm GMT on 5th July 2023.
In the cover letter please include the following:
• Please let us know why you’d be perfect for the role and how you meet the behaviours, skills and experience requirements
• Please provide an example of your experience in developing and implementing an advocacy or related strategy
Due to resource constraints, we apologise, but we will only respond to shortlisted candidates.
Lively Minds operates a strict Child & Vulnerable Adult Protection Policy, and we therefore check suitability of successful candidates though background checks consisting of references and police checks.
Lively Minds is fully committed to equity, diversity and inclusion. We want this to be reflected in the diversity of the people who work for us and we welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and identities.