Education Support Officer

Closing Date: Friday, 21 March 2025

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Blantyre SPCA/WVS Malawi is seeking an individual to fulfill the position of Education Support Officer for their Mission Rabies education programme.

One child dies from rabies every 10 minutes. Most victims are under the age of 15. Rabies is 100% fatal, but entirely vaccine preventable. Children just need the right information to protect themselves.

WVS established Mission Rabies, a campaign that aims to eliminate rabies for good, in 2013. Our rabies education programme focuses on increasing awareness about the dangers of this disease and ensuring people know how to protect themselves. To date, globally Mission Rabies has vaccinated over 5 million dogs and educated over 9.6 million children on rabies prevention. Last year in Malawi, through our education programme we reached over 13 million children, and over 600,000 community members with our rabies prevention messages.

The Education Support Officer will report to the National Education Programme Manager and will play a key role in supporting our sensitisation and education projects, ensuring that we achieve measurable outcomes for children, teachers and community members across both urban and rural settings. You will be part of a team developing campaigns across multiple channels to raise awareness of the disease, increase vaccination coverage and share information that can save lives.

We currently work in 14 districts and have ambitious plans for growth across the country. This role offers a great opportunity for the right candidate. There will be an opportunity to grow and develop, working with the wider team to help develop your skills and build experience. We need someone who is ambitious, driven and wants the opportunity to grow with the organisation. This is a full-time role.

Key responsibilities of the position:

• Monitor education projects: The Education Support Officer shall monitor project performance and assure the successful completion of short- and long-term goals and deadlines.
• Communication: The Education Support Officer will support in communications with community stakeholders (TAs, ADCS, VDCS, (BOs) and Malawi Government line ministries and departments (Health, Education and Social Welfare)
• Support vaccination campaigns through education activities: The Education Support Officer shall support in vaccination campaign planning and development through direct organisation and execution of education and sensitization activities with local stakeholders such as local leaders (GVHs, CBOs, Social Welfare Officers, Teachers, etc.). They will deliver tailored training in rabies prevention and the delivery of lessons about rabies (train-the-trainer).
• Material development: The Education Support Officer shall contribute to the creation and distribution of educational materials and resources with approval from line manager
• Planning and management: The Education Support Officer shall assist the National Education Programme Manager with logistics and financial bookkeeping for the Education Team at a local level to ensure delivery of high-quality field programmes.
• Research: The Education Support Officer shall support the National Education Programme Manager to measure goals and impacts of Mission Rabies intervention through social research methods, such as Knowledge, Attitude and Practice surveys and focus group discussions.
• Reporting: The Education Support Officer shall support the National Education Programme Manager with production of end of activity reports including monthly reports.

Ideal candidates should have the following abilities, qualifications and competencies:

• University Bachelor’s degree in education, community development or related field
• At least 2 years of field experience working with children, community mobilisation or public health behaviour change campaigns
• Proven verbal, written and presentation skills
• A strong team player
• Excellent attention to detail and pride in delivering high-quality work
• Competency in Microsoft 365 packages including Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and PowerPoint
• Familiarity with the Malawian education, agriculture and health systems
• Ability to spend over half of their time travelling to work on projects across Malawi
• Ability to thrive in a fast-growing organisation and deliver to tight deadlines
• Fluency in English as well as Chichewa

Interested candidates should submit a letter of motivation and their CV by Friday, 21 March 2025 to lusungu@wvs.org.uk