Community Care Coordinator
- Position Title : Community Care Coordinator - Khan Younis Hub
- Position Type : Regular, Full Time
- Location : Gaza Sky Geeks /Mercy Corps
- Duration : One Year
PROGRAM/DEPARTMENT SUMMARY: -
Gaza Sky Geeks (GSG) is Gaza’s leading co-working space, tech education hub, and startup accelerator, run by Mercy Corps, a nonprofit international relief and development organization with programs in the occupied Palestinian territories since the 1980s. Mercy Corps founded GSG in partnership with Google.org in 2011. We bring together online freelancers, outsourcers, and startup founders together under one roof to share ideas, best practices, code, and build brighter futures through the power of the internet. Gaza Sky Geeks’ overarching goal is to build an internationally competitive technology ecosystem in Gaza through online freelancing, outsourcing, and startups.
GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE POSITION
As Community Care Coordinator, you are the bridge across the sub-communities of the GSG program verticals. Your role is to create a welcoming, friendly environment for the entire and newly emerging GSG community in the south of Gaza, based within our Khan Younis hub, as well as create connections to the community in Gaza city and across Palestine more generally (i.e. the West Bank).
You will do this by listening to community members and synthesizing views in the community into actionable feedback and strategic recommendations for GSG team members. You should be on your feet quite a lot - either MC’ing an event, floating around the co-working space to have casual check-ins, or having 1:1s with community members to understand how GSG could serve them better. You balance this high level of face-to-face, dynamic human interaction with heads-down work to synthesize your findings into actionable, documented feedback and proposals for new initiatives for the team. You will help build the capacity of GSG’s community by supporting outreach to new members, as well as deepening connections between members across all GSG activity locations. You are a connector by nature, and have a knack for facilitating energetic networking events that create meaningful, impactful connections among community members who otherwise would not interact. You embody and champion the GSG values and go above and beyond to instill them into our community members. You are deeply empathetic and approach this role with a customer service attitude.
Community Care Responsibilities:
- Focal Point for All Community Needs and Ideas
- Communicate GSG strategy, priorities and values in a way that resonates with the GSG community.
- Develop diverse mechanisms and tools (i.e. surveys, 1:1s, group debriefs, etc) for the community to provide feedback and ensure there is broad awareness of the existence of these mechanisms .
- Critically assess community feedback in a systematic way .
- Continuously develop recommendations and drive initiatives to improve community member experiences.
- Be the owner of the GSG Community Onboarding tools and processes and ensure it is continuously updated and integrated as a standard part of our programming across geographies.
- Representation of GSG
- MC for various events, including program verticals’ events, mentor workshops, and other public events.
- Present GSG professionally to donors and outside visitors.
- Serve as the community spokesperson both internally and externally.
- Outreach Support
- Support program verticals and other community functions (e.g. communications team, diversity/inclusivity, tech community lead, etc.) with activities to raise GSG’s profile to new members .
- Relay feedback and support comms team members to improve outreach communications messaging and targeting.
- Taking a lead role in providing community updates, knowledge and information sharing, ensuring and promoting two-way communication and actively managing the channels which facilitate this.
- Community Networking and Connections
- Design and implement innovative and impactful interventions to enhance cross-vertical networking .
- Develop expertise in the ‘science of networking’ by researching ways to measure the impact of a network and integrate these metrics into our activities and tools.
- Consider how the physical GSG space could be used, improved, or manipulated to facilitate a more community-oriented, professional environment for staff and community (e.g. using wall space to share information or highlight staff/community, thinking critically about seating arrangements, etc).
- Represent GSG to other education providers (universities and private institutions), co-working spaces, incubators and similar tech programs.
- Develop ties with and represent GSG to non-tech sectors (e.g. finance, law, media), promoting GSG in these communities and diversifying the talent pool which forms part of the broader GSG network.
- Brand/Culture Management
- Harmonize GSG community culture, feel, and connectivity across GSG locations in Gaza and West Bank by working with program verticals, operations, and communications teams to ensure that spaces, infrastructure, onboarding, resources, and communication are of the same standard of excellence .
- Onboard new team members and partners about GSG values, culture, and history
- Supports effective coordination and communication among all ‘Community Management Working Group’ members which should include representatives from:
- Diversity and Inclusivity team
- Freelancing and Tech Education team
- Mentorship and Startup Programs team
- Operations and Co-working team
- Communication and Social Media team
- West Bank team
- South Team team
ACCOUNTABLE TO: GSG Director and Community Care Manager
WORKS WITH: GSG community and Community Management Working Group members, MC staff
ACCOUNTABILITY TO PARTICIPANT AND STAKEHOLDER:
Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.
QUALIFICATIONS, KNOWLEDGE , EXPERIENCE AND SUCCESS FACTORS :
- University degree in ICT, engineering, business, graphic design or any other related field, with a demonstrated record of interest and contemporary knowledge in his/her field.
- At least 2 years of proven work experience in a professional team-oriented environment
- Strong understanding of the social, political, and economic context of the Gaza Strip.
- Excellent writing skills in both English and Arabic.
- Proficiency in MS Office, Slack, Google products (Drive, Sheets, Docs). GSG does not use email internally. We use Slack.
- Willingness to work outside of normal business hours as required;
SUCCESS FACTORS:
- Through a positive attitude, excellent empathy for others, and clear communication, you are able to inspire others to do their best work and provide motivation to others.
- Able to draw clear lines between professional and personal feedback-- you don’t take or provide feedback on a personal basis and embrace constructive criticism as an opportunity to grow, or at least have a conversation with the other person
- Can triage a crisis, and figure out how to get something done despite the shifting ground underneath.
- Able to roll with the punches and come up with a new plan of action based on changing situations
- Is a strong advocate for capacity building resources. Constantly strives to innovate on how to improve organizational effectiveness
- Strong listener, receptive to all types of information
- Proactive sharing of information to broader team about new learning, initiatives, or reports relevant to organization’s work (with the aim of educating and developing others on the team)
- Take a cross-cutting view of GSG program work and work pro-actively and collaboratively with other GSG program management of other verticals
- Consciousness of budgetary constraints and ensuring GSG operates in a cost efficient manner so as to better utilise its limited resources
- Familiar with all MC procurement and finance processes and ensure your direct reports follow/understand these processes to smoothly execute programing
- Pro-active communication of timeline revisions in advance to management and clear explanation of revised timelines/roadmaps;
- Commit to meetings or deadlines, and always communicate ahead of time
- Ability to work and deliver results, even while traveling for businesses purposes
- Consistently demonstrate a solutions oriented approach to problems and know when to escalate problems to manager after other avenues (solving independently, asking for help from teammates) fail
- When present problems to team/management, simultaneously provide a menu of possible solutions you have thought of
- having a solid understanding of interpersonal/team dynamics and that different people require different approaches
- Takes ownership of own professional development (e.g. research, proposing development activities to management, requests feedback from management/peers regularly)
- holding debriefs, post-mortems, etc. after cohorts, events, etc. and work with MEL team to improve outcomes by making clear, actionable changes to program implementation
- Communicate changes to program implementation, based on such learning, regularly to team members and management
Ongoing Learning
In support of our belief that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities we serve, we empower all team members to dedicate 5% of their time to learning activities that further their personal and/or professional growth and development
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.
We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.
Equal Employment Opportunity
Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer that does not tolerate discrimination on any basis. We actively seek out diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be collectively stronger and have sustained global impact.
We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.
Safeguarding & Ethics
Mercy Corps is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC. We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere to Mercy Corps Code of Conduct Policies and values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct elearning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.
How to Apply
Qualified persons with disability are highly encouraged to apply.
Interested candidates are encouraged to submit an application online HERE no later than Thursday, 03 December 2020
- Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.
- Please apply separate application for each position you are interested in.