Senior Advocacy & Program Manager
Location: Patna, India
Job Description:
The Senior Advocacy and Program Manager will be in-charge of advocacy activities for Video Volunteers in Central India. In Central India, Video Volunteers has 150 Community Correspondents who report on community issues and use those videos to lobby government. The advocacy manager will work with VV’s state coordinators as well as Correspondents to ensure that action is taken by authorities on important issues and to embed Video Volunteers into the network of organizations working in those states.
The position can be based at our Patna office and will be responsible for advocacy in Bihar, West Bengal and Jharkhand. The advocacy manager will work closely with some of VV’s other state offices in Bhopal, Kolkata, Raipur and Cuttack and thus will need to do a fair amount of travel.
- Identify possible campaigns for Video Volunteers to launch, based on the videos produced by the Community Correspondents, on issues such as NREGA, gender, maternal health, corruption, or conflict.
- Write numerous advocacy strategy briefs, following VV’s methodology of campaign design
- Handle all aspects of developing those campaigns– such as planning the change strategies, connecting with local officials, making field visits, holding public meetings, calling government officials and communicating with the media and other partners.
- Give inputs and recommendations for the organization’s strategy through ongoing discussions with the directors and sharing of observations
- Write analytical reports about the state
- Develop relationships with the activist and NGO community at the state-level and make it so that VV’s work becomes deeply embedded in the meaningful campaigns happening in those states, and VV is seen as a trusted partner
- Supervise VV’s state coordinators across the region for their advocacy work, ensuring the state offices are meeting their goals in terms of advocacy outreach and networking
- Network with state government officials and ministries to develop collaborations
- Create and set programmatic budgets as and when required
- Develop and launch new programs within Video Volunteers. Be responsible for the successful execution of the overall organizational strategy, in terms of design, reach and quality
- Establish contact with national networks and NGOs and media partners players and find ways to engage them in our work
- Work in tandem with the state teams to establish media contacts and use these to draw attention to the issues at hand
- Handle the programmatic reporting for those state offices
Qualifications/Experience:
- At least seven years of experience in the development sector;
- On a career path of NGO leadership
- Experience working with state governments
- Experience working with social movements
- A great strategic thinker. Must have demonstrated experience in campaigning, and proven ability in writing campaign plans
- Excellent writing skills in English
- Desire for a long-term association
- Leadership skills and ability to resolve conflicts
- Fluency in Hindi and English
Video Volunteers is a media and human rights NGO that is growing and changing together with the media and social change space in India. We are an international community media organization that equips women and men in underdeveloped areas with video journalism skills, enabling entire communities to expose underreported stories from their communities and take action to right the wrongs of poverty, injustice and inequality.