Call for Consultancy service -Female Research Mentor For Girls research participants, Addis Ababa

I.                    Background

ActionAid Ethiopia (AAE) is a Gender Justice, Good Governance and Poverty Eradication international organization. AAE builds capacities to create people agencies of critical mass of communities especially Women, Girls and Young People living in poverty and exclusion to fulfil their rights, ensure redistribution of resources and build their resilience.  We prioritize to work with Women, Girls and Young People and their organizations, networks, civil society organizations, national and local government and other allies to overcome gender injustice and structural causes of poverty.

ActionAid UK, ActionAid Ethiopia, ActionAid Bangladesh and ActionAid Yappika are collaborating on ‘Powerful Futures: a girl-led research project’. In the midst and aftermath of the COVID 19 crisis, this research will provide an opportunity to focus on a future that works for girls. The project is designed to shift power back to girls, giving them the power and agency to create their own narrative, from shaping and carrying out the research, to telling a compelling story, and influencing for change, with the results.

II.                   Project Objective - This girl-led research project aims to:

• Provide an opportunity to understand how girls' lives have been shaped by the COVID crisis, what their priorities are for the future, and how organisations like ActionAid, as well as other institutions, can best support them.

• Understand whether/how girls and young women are mobilizing for change, and what role inter generational movement building (with women’s rights networks etc) can play in this

• Use a power analysis to understand how the inequalities adolescent girls face are structured and sustained, and ways we can challenge the power imbalances that shape girls’ lives

ActionAid Ethiopia is looking for a national female mentor to support the girl- led groups to design and implement a participatory, action-orientated research project, and to analyse the results.

III.                timeline

The female research mentor will need to be available during July, August and September for this task, and we estimate that it will be 35 total days.  All data from the analysis workshops, and the communication design brief should be submitted by August 20/2021.

IV.                Scope

The research will take place in Addis Ababa, 3 - 4 urban, semi urban and highly covid affected sub cities (to be determined). A total of 10 girls aged between 15-19 and 3 assistants will engage in the research from the different sub cities.

V.                  Deliverables by the research mentor:

• Training plan for the girl’s group developed and training delivered

• Comprehensive participatory research plan and tools developed in collaboration with the girls’ group, and checked for quality and safety

• Raw data from the research conducted by girls collected, checked for quality, and submitted to ActionAid

• Plan for, and delivery of, analysis workshop

• A summary of key emerging themes from the analysis workshop

• A design brief, put together in collaboration with girls, for a communications product to summarise key research themes (which will then be passed to a designer)

• Present the findings on a workshop.

Person specification – Qualification & Experience

• The mentor should have Master’s degree in Gender, social work, Human rights, Law, or in Development Studies or related subject with practical knowledge.

• At least 2-3 years of previous research experience – and in particular experience of participatory and action-orientated approaches

• Experience of working with girls and young women in ways that support them to find their ‘power within’, collaborate with each other to build ‘power with’, and enable them to find the ‘power to’ create change

• Experience of developing participatory research tools, and ensuring quality of data collection

• Experience of running participatory training and workshop processes

• Commitment to feminist research principles

• Understanding of gender, power and intersectionality, and the practical application of this to girls lived realities