Role Purpose:
This role is about bringing in, through partnerships, those who have been historically excluded from our services, our offices and our societies because of the colour of your skin, disability status, injecting drug use, sex work, HIV status, sexual identity or gender expression. This role is deliberate in its inclusion of those excluded, who have the experience and the credibility that comes from having helped organize communities from within, at national and regional levels successfully. Who through that organizing have come to the inter-section of SRHRJ and are now ready to build strategic, disruptive partnerships with the organizations/services that have excluded them. There is full support within the most senior levels of IPPF to support this role, the disruption it brings and the possibilities.
Context of role:
- The essence of this job is to bring the lived experience and the strategic thinking of regional community networks inside, establish ‘beachheads’ that will allow marginalised communities to step inside the Secretariat/Federation and shake us up.
- This is a role for someone who brings their own lived experience and regional networks, who prioritizes collaboration and connection. This work will go beyond the Federation to amplify messages, build alliances and consortia and re-grant to movements and initiatives that matter.
- The role invokes courage, ambition and aspiration by with MAs and regional colleagues to create partnerships with regional community networks that collectively ensure IPPF, its services and activism becomes more accessible to those traditionally excluded and marginalised.
- The role will work with MAs and outside the Federation to uncover and connect with non-traditional Partnerships that will make a positive difference to the progress of our work.
Role Deliverables:
- To establish purpose driven disruptive partnerships with community networks; ensuring they are led by people who have historically been marginalized from the sector, or who could amplify their work through the IPPF platform at the regional level. Partnerships that go beyond speaking together at some regional events to shaping our profile and our work with the MAs and through them with the local excluded community organizations themselves.
- Drives the engagement of strategic community partnerships and relationships with IPPF, ensuring those we serve have space/the opportunity to challenge and disrupt how we think, speak and act to more fully deliver on our promise.
- Forecasts and horizon scans for trends and growing injustices, identifies those groups at the heart of new SRHR related struggles and reaches out to connect with them/influence IPPF to connect with them.
- Connects, identifies, maps and links activists through relationship building, influencing and outreach – ensure IPPF can be the broadest stall possible.
- Keep abreast of overall political trends in the region (or sub-regions) and beyond, anticipating the opportunities or risks for key groups fighting for their rights and how that should influence IPPF priorities for engagement and type of engagement.
- Gathers and shares intelligence to map the opposition that these partners have to deal with, understanding how it shows itself both in their direct context, and how it joins up in macro-opposition strategies, so we deepen our understanding of the landscape in which we are working to inform decisions and priorities for action.
- Builds relationships, profile and presence for IPPF in new territories and new ways.
- Supportive of a woman’s right to choose and to have access to safe abortion services.
- Ability and willingness to work in a diverse and multicultural environment that is respectful of other cultures.
- Support and enable a safe environment, adhering to the safeguarding reporting and monitoring requirements of this role.
Key Skills/Expertise:
- Lived experience within a stigmatized population an asset; an activist who works within and across multiple community networks, building partnerships to challenge the system; standing up and speaking out.
- Community organizing at grassroots, national and regional levels, particularly of communities excluded/underserved by sexual and reproductive health services.
- Seen as a leader in challenging the status quo, bringing new messages and disruptive thinking to our community.
- A political ‘nose’, fights for ideals but understands the political economy of a given context and strategizes accordingly.
- Ability to build momentum, rally partners around the same concern. Brings issues up and across the Federation.
- Builds authentic relationships and can relate to people from different cultures and backgrounds in a positive, engaging and thoughtful way Inclusive, curious and open to other’s ideas as well as coming up with and articulating their own ideas.
- Understands how to leverage new technologies and digital spaces to support activism.
- Brings real world language to the role; challenges technical/corporate speak and grows the literacy in the organisation.
- Fluent in at least one of the core IPPF languages, Arabic, English, French or Spanish. Good command of English an asset.
- Demonstrate an understanding of and commitment to safeguarding in a local and international context.
- Demonstrates ability and willingness to work in a diverse, multicultural, multilingual and intergenerational environment that is anti-racist and respectful of others.
- An intersectional (pro) feminist passionate about sexual reproductive health care rights + justice, including safe abortion.
- Supportive of people’s rights regardless of sexuality or gender identity/expression and supportive of worker’s
rights and access to health care in sex work.
IPPF is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all employees, volunteers, contractors and partners to share this commitment. Anyone employed with IPPF agrees to sign and adhere to IPPF’s Code of Conduct and Safeguarding (Children and Vulnerable Adults) Policy.
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