Project Officer – Fathers Who Play, Children Who Thrive Project

Job Title: Project Officer – Fathers Who Play, Children Who Thrive Project

Reports to: Project Coordinator

Supervises: Para Social Workers (PSWs), Community Resource Persons, Community Volunteers, and project-supported community structures (technical supervision)

Project: Fathers Who Play, Children Who Thrive Project (GCC Project)

Duty Station: Kiryandongo and Kyangwali Refugee Settlements

Organizational Background

Bantwana Initiative Uganda (BIU) is a Ugandan non-profit organization committed to strengthening community-led systems and solutions that improve the wellbeing and resilience of vulnerable children, adolescents, youth, and families.

With support from Grand Challenges Canada (GCC), BIU is implementing the Fathers Who Play, Children Who Thrive Project, an innovative bundled family intervention that integrates the REAL Fathers model and Community-Based Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) approaches. The project seeks to improve nurturing care, father engagement, violence prevention, child development outcomes, and early learning among refugee and host communities in Kiryandongo and Kyangwali refugee settlements.

Job Summary

Provide technical, operational, monitoring, and administrative support for implementation of the Fathers Who Play, Children Who Thrive Project at settlement and community levels. The position coordinates field implementation, supervises Para Social Workers and community structures, ensures quality delivery of the REAL Fathers and ECCE interventions, supports data collection and reporting, ensures safeguarding compliance, and strengthens collaboration with local government and refugee settlement stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

Project Implementation and Coordination

• Coordinate day-to-day implementation of project activities.
• Support adaptation and rollout of REAL Fathers and ECCE interventions.
• Coordinate community mobilization and participant enrollment.
• Ensure timely achievement of district-level targets and milestones.
• Support and participate in planning meetings, reviews, and implementation monitoring.

Technical Support and Quality Assurance

• Provide technical support to Para Social Workers and Community Resource Persons.
• Conduct routine supervision and coaching visits to CBECCE clusters and young father households.
• Monitor intervention fidelity and adherence to approved budgets and workplans.
• Support quality improvement actions and continuous learning.
• Support transitioning of children to formal schools through strengthening of VSLAs.

Community Engagement and Stakeholder Coordination

• Coordinate engagement with local government and refugee structures.
• Support Child Wellbeing Committees and community structures.
• Facilitate referrals and linkages to services.
• Promote community ownership and participation.

Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Documentation

• Support routine monitoring and quality reporting on supported clusters, ECCE centres, and young father households.
• Ensure timely collection and verification of project data.
• Conduct data quality checks and maintain beneficiary records.
• Document success stories, lessons learned, and case studies.

Training and Capacity Building

• Organize and facilitate trainings for Para Social Workers, community structures, and staff.
• Support orientation and coaching of project teams.
• Promote peer learning and knowledge sharing.

Administrative and Logistics Support

• Coordinate district-level logistics and activity implementation.
• Support procurement planning and asset management.
• Prepare activity requests, reports, and accountabilities.

Safeguarding and Child Protection

• Promote and uphold BIU safeguarding policies.
• Support child protection and violence prevention efforts.
• Report safeguarding concerns according to policy.

Learning, Evidence Generation and Scale-Up Support

• Support collection of implementation evidence.
• Contribute to learning products and dissemination activities.
• Support sustainability and scale-up planning processes.

Required Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Social Work, Community Development, Development Studies, Education, Public Health, Social Sciences, or a related field.
• Minimum 3–5 years of experience implementing community-based development projects.
• Experience in child protection, parenting, ECD, refugee, health, or education programs.
• Experience working with community structures and local governments.
• Experience in monitoring, data collection, and report writing.

Core Competencies

• Ability to ride a motorcycle with a valid riding license.
• Good understanding of the respective settlements and local languages spoken.

Safeguarding Statement

The Project Officer shall uphold BIU Child Protection, Safeguarding, Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA), and Code of Conduct policies and ensure compliance by all project participants and implementation teams.

Working Conditions

This position requires extensive field travel within refugee settlements and host communities and direct engagement with vulnerable children, fathers, caregivers, and community structures.

Applications including CV and supporting documents must be emailed using the application link below.