Terms of Reference for consultancy service for SOS Children’s Villages in Ethiopia – SOS Children’s Villages Ethiopia
Consultancy and Training, Education, Information Technology
SOS Children’s Villages Ethiopia
SOS Children's Villages is the largest non-governmental, non-political, non-denominational charitable child welfare organisation in the world. Its mission is to build families for children in need, help them shape their own futures and share in the development of their communities. The first SOS Children's Village was founded by Hermann Gmeiner in 1949 in Imst, Austria. He was committed to helping children in need,children who had lost their homes, their security and their families as a result of the Second World War. With the support of many donors and co-workers, the organisation has grown to help children all over the world.
Currently, SOS Children's Villages offers an effective alternative foster care through its services in the Alternative Child Care and Family & Community Development Programme Units in 134 countries and territories around the world. It also supports educational programmes and medical centres and it is active in the field of child protection and child rights.
SOS Children's Villages started to work in Ethiopia in 1974 with the opening of the first SOS Children's Village in Mekelle. Currently, we are operating in Ethiopia in six regions namely Harari, Tigray, Amhara, Sidama, Somali and Oromia. In addition, we operate in two city administrations: Addis Ababa & Dire Dawa. SOS Children’s Villages Programme work towards its vision of a world where, “every child belongs to a family and grows with love, respect and security”. For the past 44 years, we have been working to build families for children in need, help them shape their own future and share in the development of their communities. Everything we do is based on the best interest of the child. We help vulnerable families care for their children, and we work to prevent the breakdown of parental care. When children lose their own parental care, we provide quality alternative care. We support young people in their efforts to become independent adults and succeed in life.
BACKGROUND
SOS Children’s Villages in Ethiopia is a non-governmental, non-political, non-denominational charitable child welfare organization. For the past 47 years, we have been working to build families for children in need, help them shape their own future and share in the development of their communities. Everything we do is based on the best interest of the child. We help vulnerable families care for their children, and we work to prevent the breakdown of parental care. When children lose their own parental care, we provide quality alternative care. We support young people in their efforts to become independent adults and succeed in life.
The normal face-to-face learning environment in Ethiopian schools has been greatly hampered for the last three years because of multifaceted crises (COVID-19, internal conflict, etc). Majority of the schools were not ready to mitigate the risk of leaving students out of schooling because of the crises. However, few schools were found to use different learning platforms in a very traditional approach. The emergency program of SOS CVE conducted need assessment of schools. The need assessment was initiated by a lesson learned during this crisis and identified the following:
- ICT infrastructure development such as need for desktop computers
- Capacity development training for staff on digital literacy
Thus, this ToR is informed by the need identified during the assessment and the correspondingrecommendation.
The total number of training participants range from 23-25 drawn from 5 SOS Hermann Gmeiner Schools. These are teachers (10), ICT officers (5), school principals (5) and others (3-5).
2. OBJECTIVES OF THE ASSIGNMENT
The main objective of the training (consultancy work) is to enhance the digital literacy skill of training participants to enable them to apply it in the school learning environment.
The specific objectives are:
- To enable training participants to create and use alternative learning platforms in the schools using existing digital resources/ tools of HGSs
- To improve effectiveness of communication and collaboration skills in online environments such as digital communication tools
- To enable participants develop behaviors for safe, appropriate, ethical and responsible use of internet
3. SCOPE OF THE ASSIGNMENT
The scope of the assignment is limited to carrying out the following tasks:
- Conduct initial assessment of digital environment of, and training participants profile
- Design and develop need based training package (ppt, handouts, activity sheets, etc)
- Deliver the training session
- Prepare final assessment and training completion report
4. METHODOLOGY OF TRAINING DELIVERY
The consultant is expected to use a participatory approach to fully engage training participants. However, it is the responsibility of the consultant to propose suitable training methods based on the given information in this terms of reference.
Below are proposed contents. However, the consultant can refine the contents and is expected to explain his understanding of the assignment.
5. DELIVERABLES
The selected consulting firm/ individual consultant is expected to deliver the following deliverables during and at the end of the consulting service:
- Initial assessment report on SOS HGS’s digital environment and training participants profile
- Trainer’s resource pack (training manuals or guide, presentation slide, handouts and worksheets, training videos or demonstrations, assessment and evaluations tools, reference materials including websites and multimedia materials
- Final training participants evaluation and training completion report
6. TIME FRAME, DURATION AND VENUE
The training is tentatively scheduled to be conducted from September 18-22, 2023. The venue for the training is at head office (staff development center. The consultant is expected to facilitate the training for 5 consecutive days. The total work period (16 days) can be broken down into preparation period (10 days), training delivery period (5 days) and report writing period (1 day).
REQUIREMENTS OF THE CONSULTANT (SKILLS, QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCES)
The consultant carrying out this assignment should generally have a thorough understanding of the education sector in Ethiopia and the application of digital technology in the school context.
This understanding of the training environment should be substantiated by:
- Certification of experience and exposure of the firm and/ or trainers on practical application and similar training provisions
- A higher education (MSC or above, or equivalent) in ICT, digital literacy, computer programming, software development, etc
