Islamic Relief Vacancy for Livelihood Officer for Mushroom Cultivation Project - NTB

JOB TITLE: Livelihoods Officer (Mushroom Cultivation Project)

LOCATION : Mataram West Lombok with frequent travel to project locations in BatuLayar and Gerung subdistricts

Duration: 6 months with possibility of extension based on performance and availability of funds

ISLAMIC RELIEF  PURPOSE
To promote sustainable economic and social development through development programmes, helping the needy regardless of race, religion or gender.

COUNTRY PURPOSE

IR Indonesia was established in the year 2003 with one project office catering for development activities in Banten province. In 2004, in response the devastating Tsunami, IR expanded programme coverage to Aceh province to provide humanitarian relief, early recovery and developmental support to the tsunami survivors. It was about this time when programme activities were also expanded to West Java, NTB and later in West Sumatra and Jogjakarta provinces. IR presently maintains a Country Office in Jakarta with field programme in Aceh and NTB provinces.

The main sectors for Indonesia Programme include Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), WASH, Sustainable Livelihoods and Orphans’ Support.

REPORTING LINES:Post holder would directly report to the Area Coordinator in NTB under the overall guidance and supervision of the Country Director.

BackgroundIn the anticipation of a potential intervention in Lombok - NTB, Islamic Relief Indonesia wishes to recruit a competent Livelihoods Officer with demonstrated competencies in enterprise development and training and capacity building of beneficiaries in value addition, product development and marketing of food products. The assignment is expected to commence towards the beginning of April 2015, for a period of 6 months. The position is based in Mataram with frequent travel to supported mushroom production sites in sub-districts Gurung and BatuLayar.

Islamic Relief is presently implementing a Mushroom Cultivation Project to provide alternative livelihoods opportunities to resource poor, marginalized and food insecure women and their households. The project also serves as a means to mitigate the negative impacts of climate variability on the agriculture based livelihoods of the local populations. Towards this end, 84 women organized in 6 women groups have been supported through trainings and provision of critical inputs for the production of Mushrooms and their bi-products. Beneficiaries have also been linked with the provincial mushroom forum to receive technical and market related support beyond IR intervention. Supported groups have started producing raw mushrooms of acceptable quality and some of them have also started producing value added products such as kripik, nuggets and crispy.  Supported women groups are benefiting from a visible demand for mushroom products, however they are relying mainly on the sale of raw mushroom products for income generation. Islamic Relief is convinced that profitability can be significantly increased by enhancing our beneficiaries’’ involvement in the value-chain.  The upcoming intervention seeks to enhance profitability of supported groups through training, capacity building and provision of inputs for the formulation and implementation of business expansion plans.  With this background, IR seeks an innovative, motivate, dynamic and experienced individual for the delivery of project activities and for achieving the objective of enhanced profitability for supported women groups.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Guiding the formulation and implementation of business plans, assume a  lead role in conducting  market research and assessment studies, designing and imparting project trainings business and enterprise development and marketing; 
• Explore opportunities for linking supported beneficiary groups with key market players on the demand side (i.e. chain of hotels, medium and large restaurant, retailers, etc.);
• The post holder will guide beneficiaries in obtaining necessary certifications (i.e. Halal and Health Certificates, etc) while assisting beneficiary groups with product registration and packaging;
• Supervise Livelihood assistant in designing and disseminating technical trainings in mushroom production, product development, marketing in addition to other capacity building initiatives as foreseen in the project;
• Ensure that support women groups develop and maintain recommended standards at all stages of production i.e.seeding, planting, harvesting, post-harvest management, value addition and marketing; 
• Provide on-going management and technical assistanceto beneficiaries in  mushroom cultivationthrough structured trainings and follow up monitoring and on-farm extension;
• Frequently monitoring project activities and target women groups and collect quantitative and qualitative data on beneficiaries, market trends and project impact;
• Build and manage meaningful relations with local stakeholders, such as the heads of villages, religious leaders, women’s groups, local NGOs and specialized government agencies, to ensure their active participation and contribution in the project;
• Implementation of compliant and response mechanism;
• Any other tasks as assigned by the management

KEY COMPETENCIES

• A university degree or other suitable qualification in a related field 
• At least 4 years experience coupled with demonstrated knowledge of sustainable livelihoods, women economic empowerment, community development and enterprise development.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills;
• Demonstrated competencies in designing and imparting trainings in business development and marketing;
• Excellent report writing skills, and advanced computer skills with proficiencies in MS Office, Windows, Internet and Email
• Ability to provide leadership as well as the spirit to work as a member of a team
• High degree of adaptability to varied working environtments and good interpersonal skills
• Able to maintain good relationship with government agencies/institutions at all levels, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)
• Demonstrated experience in monitoring, data gathering and report generation
• Fluent spoken and written Indonesian is a must while proficiency in English language is highly desired;
• Sincere commitment to engaging women and involving gender considerations into project planning required
• Islamic Relief is an equal opportunity employer and all recruitments are processed without any prejudice due to color, race, religion or gender. However, the successful candidate must understand and respect the Organization’s core values and adopt follow necessary guidelines for interaction with beneficiaries; particularly women and children
• Eligible local candidates will be highly preferred.

ACCOUNTABILITY:All Islamic Relief team members are expected to support all efforts towards accountability, specifically to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field project.

If you meet the above requirements kindly send ONLY your Application letter and detailed CV including recommendations from 3 referees (one of them your immediate former employer) to: hrislamic@islamic-relief.or.id. Please put the job title and your name in subject of your email.

Only short listed candidates will be contacted.

Closing date:  11 March 2015