Call for advisors from MENA region to join FRIDA's advisory committee!

FRIDA is recruiting passionate and committed young feminist activists from the Middle East and North Africa region to join its Global Advisory Committee!

We are looking for individuals located or from the following countries where we do not currently have advisors and/or need more advisory support:  Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, Western Sahara

We are no longer accepting applications for this post.

Please see more details below

قراءة في العربية

Background

Founded in 2011, FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund is the only youth-led fund focused exclusively on supporting global young feminist activism to advance social justice movements and agendas. FRIDA aims to bring new resources and new opportunities to girls, young women and trans youth globally.

Its Vision is a world where young women, girls and trans* youth are recognized as experts of their own reality, enjoying their human rights and building a more just and sustainable world through collective power and transformative leadership.

To this end, its Mission is to:

• Provide accessible and strategic funding for newly established young feminist-led initiatives through a participatory grantmaking process, that puts funding decision power into the hands of applicants;
• Strengthen the capacity of young feminist organizations to leverage additional resources for their work and enhance their impact, including more skills, information, and networks; and
• Increase commitments of donors and allies to resourcing young feminist activism and their issues, through resource mobilization, knowledge-building, and philanthropic advocacy.

Since its founding, FRIDA has relied on a Global Advisory Committee made up of mostly young feminist activists from all over the world. These Advisors play a key role in the following areas:

• Facilitating FRIDA’s annual participatory grantmaking process by conducting outreach, screening applications, reviewing final results, supporting due diligence.
• Supporting grantee partners’ capacity development and communication with FRIDA.
• Informing strategy and programmatic decisions in various areas of FRIDA’s work through thematic working groups such as Communications, Resource Mobilization, Capacity Development, and Grantmaking
• Informing FRIDA’s strategic direction every 5 years.

The Global Advisory Committee is currently divided up into the following regions:

• Asia and the Pacific
• Central Eastern Europe and Central and North Asia
• Latin America and the Caribbean
• Middle East and North Africa
• Sub-Saharan Africa

FRIDA recognizes that these regions are not perfectly defined nor straightforward. It has done its best to come up with a practical definition while being flexible and open to ongoing political dialogue.

Each Regional Committee is coordinated by two Regional Facilitators that rotate on a regular basis.

The Advisory Committee also relies on Thematic Advisors. These advisors are recruited to provide expertise on a specific issue or skill area. They can support multiple regions. They do not have the same responsibilities as Regional Advisors.

Advisor Responsibilities

Advisory Committee membership is voluntary and advisors work together with FRIDA staff. FRIDA will support direct travel costs related to participation in Advisory Committee meetings; and communication costs where necessary and feasible.

Advisors must also sit on different working groups to work with other FRIDA advisors and staff. Current working groups include; Grant making & Capacity Development, Resource Mobilization/Philanthropic Advocacy, Communications and Impact, Learning & Research.

Specific Responsibilities will include:

1. Regional expertise: FRIDA Advisors provide key advice and expertise about their region; in particular Advisors develop the regional strategy on annual and biannual basis.
2. Alliance-building and constituency development: This will involve supporting the FRIDA Team in building new relationships with key strategic allies including donors and other regional and international women’s rights or feminist organizations. Advisors will be required to be involved in building the Fund’s constituency through active outreach and information dissemination.
3. Coordination of Grant making: This will involve working closely with other advisors and FRIDA team to processes for grant making; implementing effective grant-making mechanisms and policies; and designing and assisting with implementation of support programs for grantees.
4. Support and development of FRIDA grantees: Advisors will be expected to support grantees and identify areas where they may need growth and development. In the case that advisors identify areas where grantees can grow and develop they will be expected to discuss these areas with the grantees and help them develop a plan to address these issues.
5. Coordination of regional events: This will involve providing insight and advice on logistics for events such as grantee partner and/or Advisor convenings in the region.
6. Resource Mobilization and Communications: This will involve support to FRIDA staff around implementation of the Fund’s fundraising, communications, and resource mobilization strategy including at least one contribution a year to FRIDA’s online communications and possibly some regional fundraising efforts.
7. Support and Coordination of the Advisory Committee: This will involve recruiting new regional and/or thematic advisors and maintaining and organizing documentation. Regional advisors are expected to liaise with Thematic advisors when relevant and strategic.

Advisor Performance Expectations and Responsibilities:

We know there are many young feminist activists who are doing excellent work and can contribute to FRIDA’s mission. We expect that when someone signs on as an advisor, they will meet the following expectations to ensure FRIDA’s Advisory Committee is serving the grantee partner community and regional and global movements to the best of their ability and capacity. Advisors are expected to:

• Communicate in a timely manner with other advisors and the FRIDA team in order to help the Advisor Committee and FRIDA staff stay effective and efficient. A response to say you cannot respond is always better than no response at all.
• Participate in Advisor calls online, on average once every two months.
• Commit to at least four hours a month on average for FRIDA related activities that support the Regional strategy. Some months are quieter and may not require this amount of time, while other months may require more than four hours. For example, during FRIDA’s grantmaking, advisors will be reviewing proposals; similarly, if a grantee or advisor convening is being held in the region, advisors will be developing agendas and providing advice on logistics.
• Maintain confidentiality and uphold strong ethics related to conflict of interest by signing FRIDA’s Conflict of Interest Policy; especially in regards to reviewing groups that the Advisor may be affiliated with in the past, present, or future; treatment towards all FRIDA community members (fellow advisors, grantee partners, staff, etc); and navigating relationships with donors and potential donors, especially shared donors for FRIDA and/or the advisor and/or grantee partner.
• Complete an annual self-assessment of my participation to the Advisory Committee, and use it to evaluate my own capacity, support, and growth within the Committee.
• Serve on the advisory committee for a 2 year term, subject to renewal through a biannual evaluation and recruitment process.
• If the Advisor is unable to participate or is inactive for more than one month, it is expected that there will be a process to evaluate and facilitate a resignation process to support the effectiveness of the Committee and allow others to have the opportunity to be an Advisor.

When FRIDA requires support that goes beyond these responsibilities and expectations for specific projects, it will go through other measures to hire consultants to support the work. For example, logistics management for events and significant translation needs.

Must haves for eligible candidates for the MENA Region:

● Aged under 35 years at the time of application

● Three or more years demonstrated commitment to advancing women’s rights, equality and non-discrimination and feminist movement building;

● Three or more years involvement with young women’s organizations/initiatives working for women’s rights, including time in a leadership role at a local, national, regional or global level;

● Functional spoken and written  one or more  of the following languages: Arabic, French, English

● Skills in such areas as project management, communications, workshop facilitation, capacity-building, movement building and/or monitoring and evaluation;

Desirable:

• Located/from the following countries where we do not currently have advisors and/or need more advisory support: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen

• Grant-making, international development, or working with a funding institution (experience grant-making to young women’s groups and/or start-up, small or community-based groups highly desirable);
• Communication experience, such as pitching and writing articles, managing social media, graphic design and/or filming;
• Digital security skills, such as preventing and managing attacks and hacks against activists online via social media, website, and email;
• Thematic issues related to:
  • Working with girls and adolescents under the age of 18;
  • Working in areas of conflict or post-conflict; refugees; people living under occupation;
  • Sex worker OR sexual & reproductive rights movement and a good knowledge of the issues and challenges faced by the movement;
  • Ecology, climate justice, and the extractive industries;
  • Migration and migrant community groups;
  • Working with the arts for activism such as theater, street art, or music;
  • Working with minority, ethnic, and rural groups, and people living with disabilities;
  • Working with the care economy and domestic worker rights;
  • Sexual orientation and gender identity & expression (SOGIE) related issues and a good knowledge of SOGIE organizations and networks on the continent
• Resource mobilization  experience, such as applying for or receiving monetary grants from a donor or organizing fundraising  activities with individuals (ie. events or online crowdfunding);
• Law, finance, accounting and/ or corporate social responsibility

How to apply:

Please review the requirements and criteria above, and if you are interested, submit a cover letter, CV and completed FRIDA advisory application form   to menaregion@youngfeministfund.org no later than 28 Dec 2016.

Once we have reviewed your application, you will hear from us to set up an interview.