Project Livelihood Officer

Who we are

SOS Children’s Villages in Ethiopia is an International Non-governmental organization and a member of SOS Children’s Villages International Federation. We started our humanitarian work in Ethiopia with the opening of our first Village in Mekelle, Northern part of Ethiopia in 1974. Since then, we have expanded our programs to different regions where there are significant needs for intervention and where we believe we can work in partnership with all relevant actors to bring sustainable positive outcomes for children’s and young people.

Today, we have grown significantly to meet the persistent challenges that confront Ethiopian children who have lost parental care and those that are at risk of losing their parental care. Working in close collaboration with international donors, local government and community-based organizations across eight program locations; we aspire that every child grows up with love, respect and security.

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Our Commitment to Safeguarding

At SOS Children's Villages, safeguarding isn't just a policy, it's a foundational value embedded in everything we do. We are unwavering in our commitment to protecting the children, young people, adults, and communities we serve, as well as our workforce and resources.

We cultivate an environment of trust and accountability where every voice is heard and respected. All successful candidates will be expected to champion our holistic safeguarding principles, actively upholding our Child & Youth Safeguarding Policy, Code of Conduct, and regulations against sexual misconduct, fraud, and corruption.

By joining our team, you commit to integrating these vital standards into your work, ensuring the highest levels of safety, ethics, and integrity in every action and partnership.

Together, we create a world where everyone feels safe, respected, and protected

Join Our Mission:

We are looking for Project Livelihood Officer who will be responsible for planning, implementing, monitoring, and reporting family strengthening, caregiver support, community resilience, and household economic empowerment interventions.

Key Responsibilities

Program Implementation

• Implement family strengthening and community resilience activities in accordance with approved project plans and technical standards.
• Mobilize communities and facilitate active participation of caregivers, community leaders, women, youth, and local institutions.
• Coordinate activities with government counterparts and community structures to ensure effective service delivery and sustainability.
• Integrate child protection, safeguarding, gender equality, disability inclusion, and accountability principles across all interventions.

Family strengthening and caregiver support

• Organize and facilitate caregiver support groups that strengthen peer learning, psychosocial wellbeing, and mutual support.
• Facilitate caregiver training on positive parenting, child development, nutrition, hygiene, child protection, and family wellbeing
• Provide Psychological First Aid (PFA) and basic psychosocial support and refer individuals requiring specialized services through established referral pathways.
• Coordinate the distribution of caregiver and household support kits according to project criteria.
• Promote family-based care practices and implement community awareness activities aimed at preventing family separation and strengthening child wellbeing.
• Strengthen community referral mechanisms by linking vulnerable children and families with appropriate government and specialized service provider

Community resilience and livelihood

• Support implementation of emergency livelihood recovery and household resilience interventions for vulnerable families.
• Coordinate Multipurpose Cash Assistance (MPCA) and other household assistance in accordance with organizational guidelines.
• Facilitate financial literacy, household budgeting, savings, and basic business management training.
• Establish and strengthen Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA/SACCO) to enhance household financial resilience.
• Promote women's economic empowerment, participation in household decision-making, and inclusive livelihood opportunities.
• Support livelihood diversification initiatives and community contingency planning to strengthen preparedness for drought, displacement, and other shocks.
• Facilitate community childcare and family support initiatives that enable caregivers to participate in livelihood and resilience activities

Monitoring and evaluation

• Ensure regular and ethical data collection on protection concerns and livelihood data, using age-, gender-, and disability-sensitive methodologies that uphold confidentiality and do no harm principles.
• Maintain accurate beneficiary registration, activity records, and intervention databases.
• Monitor implementation of family strengthening, livelihood, and resilience interventions against approved plans and indicator.
• Contribute to baseline, midline, and endline assessments, as well as post-intervention evaluations, ensuring child and survivor participation where safe and appropriate.
• Support the design and use of feedback and complaint mechanisms accessible to children, caregivers, and communities, and ensure timely response and integration of feedback into program improvement.
• Document and share lessons learned, promising practices, and case studies to inform evidence-based programming and advocacy.

Reporting and documentation

• Ensure that reports reflect disaggregated data (e.g., by age, gender, disability) and highlight trends in livelihoods of vulnerable children and families.
• Document and share case studies, success stories, and lessons learned to inform program adaptation, learning, and advocacy efforts.
• Support the development of donor reports by contributing technical and contextual content specific to the area and program type.
• Maintain organized and secure documentation of case management files, incident reports, session logs, and referral records in accordance with data protection and confidentiality protocols.
• Maintain complete documentation of training sessions, meetings, beneficiary records, distributions, and community activities
• Contributes to the preparation of input for internal learning reviews, evaluations, and knowledge-sharing materials.

Child protection

• Lead child protection and safety programming in emergencies including assessment, program development, training for and management of Child-Friendly Spaces.
• Support humanitarian colleagues in the implementation of emergency programs and establishment of recovery programming
• Organize discussions on child protection risks, concerns with stakeholders, children and young people on community members
• Strengthen the Child Safeguarding through creating awareness with the woreda and community leaders.

Safeguarding

• Ensure adherence to SOS CV policies such as the Code of Conduct, Safeguarding Standards and others as well as the minimum standards of humanitarian relief
• Ensure that all support is provided in the best interest of the child.
• Responsible for taking part in awareness-raising sessions and capacity building training in relation to Safeguarding and Code of Conduct and to protect children and young people from all forms of abuse, abandonment, exploitation, violence and discrimination
• Support children, young people and program participants to make them understand the Safeguarding risks and protection mechanisms
• Ensure proper safeguarding procedures and policies are in place to protect program participant children, young people, adults and other stakeholders.
• Responsible for reporting any safeguarding suspicion, concern, allegation, or incident immediately, following the safeguarding reporting procedures.
• Responsible for ensuring behavior and all relationships are based on safeguarding and in line with the Code of Conduct and adhering to it in every situation
• Be vigilant about any possible form of abuse/harm, neglect, harassment, or exploitation against, children, youth and adults in personal and professional lives;
• Report any Incident Management Team or concern within 24 hours to the Incident Management Team, focal person or concerned party through the defined channels for reporting the allegation

Our Ideal Candidate?

Let's find out if we're a match. The next step in our process depends on how your background closely align with the below criteria’s.

Essential Requirements (Must-Have):

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in social work, Sociology, Community Development, Rural Development, Business Management, Psychology, Development Studies, or other relevant social science discipline

Experience

• Minimum three years of relevant professional experience in livelihood, family strengthening, community development, child protection, resilience programming, or humanitarian response.
• Demonstrated experience facilitating caregiver and parenting program.
• Experience implementing livelihood recovery, financial inclusion, VSLA/SACCO, cash assistance, or household economic strengthening interventions.
• Experience working with government institutions, community structures, and humanitarian partners.
• Experience in emergency response and community resilience programming is an advantage.
• Experience and ability to work in humanitarian or emergency context and emergency protection projects

Desired Assets (Nice-to-Have):

• Experience working in similar projects in INGO
• Training in Positive Parenting, Psychological First Aid (PFA), Community-Based Child Protection, or Community Resilience.
• Experience facilitating adult learning and participatory community engagement.
• Knowledge of safeguarding and accountability to affected populations.
• Familiarity with donor-funded humanitarian and development projects.
• Ability to work effectively in multicultural and hardship environments.
• Proficiency in Somali language

SOS Competencies

General Competency

• Understanding the organization and commitment to its vision and mission: able to clearly communicate SOS Children’s Villages Who We Are (Vision, Mission & Values), “Living our Values” policies and strategies in all areas.
• Child rights & child development: Working knowledge in all areas of child rights, child protection, child development, family & community development, and rights-based programming in a developing country.
• Knowledge of MHPSS: Knowledge of psychological first aid, trauma response and psychosocial care approaches.
• Child Protection: experience on child protection initiatives, awareness raising and risk assessment.
• Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting: experience in preparing structured report and using evidence to support the program.
• Community Engagement and Capacity Building: ability to build and maintain partnership with stakeholders such as schools, community and government stakeholders.
• Networking and Relationships Building: ability to build, maintain and leverage networks with local government, NGO communities’ leaders and other relevant stakeholders.
• Accountability and Result Orientation: ensure the ownership of task and meets deadlines effectively and monitor progress and communicate concerns proactively.
• Collaboration: driven to work with others, able to build partnerships and teamwork internally and externally.
• Integrity: able to state views openly and act in line with beliefs, maintain the organization’s values, maintain deadlines and commitments; have ethical standards, ability to gain the trust of co-workers, and desire to be of service.
• Communication: high-level written and verbal communication/presentation skills; ability to interact effectively with partners and staff at all levels; ability to represent the organization externally; exceptional ability to communicate consistently, clearly, and effectively with a range of stakeholders;

Core Competency

• Kindness: Act with empathy towards everyone he/she works with.
• Continuous Learning: Make an effort to learn, understand and grow as a person, admitting your own mistakes.
• Inclusiveness: In any actions show respect and care for others.
• Initiative: speak up when things are not right, do not hesitate to act, and adapt to change when necessary.
• Results Orientation: look for solutions and focus on desired results.

Does This Sound Like You?

To apply, please submit your updated resume via SOS Children's Villages Application portal (ICIMS)

We actively champion diversity and inclusion and strongly encourage women to step forward and apply. As part of our unwavering commitment to holistic safeguarding protecting children, youth, adults, and assets our selection process emphasizes value alignment and includes thorough background checks for all potential hires.

SOS Children's Villages in Ethiopia is an equal opportunity employer, providing fair consideration to all applicant regardless of race, colour, religion, gender, ancestry, national origin, age, disability, marital status, or class.

Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.