VACANCY: COMMUNITY FIELD WORKER - QUALITATIVE RESEARCH at RISE PROGRAM MAKASSAR

Terms of Reference

Post title: Community Fieldworker – Qualitative Research

Program: Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments (RISE)

Reporting to: Program Manager, RISE

Duty Station: Suva, Fiji or Makassar, Indonesia

Duration: 3 years (with probation period of 3 months)

Number of posts:1 posts

Background:

The Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments (RISE) programme aims to demonstrate a new approach to water and sanitation management in urban informal settlements. RISE is an action-research programme utilizing a randomized control trial (RCT) methodology involving 24 informal settlements (12 in each country).

The overall aim of RISE is ‘to improve the lives of men and women, boys and girls in informal settlements through improvements to the environment and human health by adopting a water sensitive cities (WSC) approach to informal settlement upgrading. This WSC approach will include improvements to local infrastructure designed to protect against flooding and environmental pollution, allow harvesting or recycling of rainwater/stormwater, and manage sewer and wastewater locally using natural treatment processes such as constructed wetlands and other biofilters. Consequently, the revitalization will alter the habitat available for urban wildlife, including vectors of human diseases (e.g. rats and mosquitoes).

As part of the RISE research programme we will undertake systematic ethnographic research for the duration of the program to understand a range of qualitative dimensions to complement the quantitative research component. These include the cultural backgrounds of the communities in the informal settlements. How did they get to be there, how do people in the communities generally tend to relate to each other in terms of support and sharing of information, how do they generally understand health and wellbeing,  what do they do to actively stay healthy, what is available for health seeking and what is the pattern of usage, what are the gender, age norms, what is physical access to various facilities like for health, food, work, community activities etc., how do they relate to authorities, what are the community power dynamics, etc. 

The expected outcome is to provide the evidence that a localized, water-sensitive approach to upgrading informal settlements can deliver sustainable, cost-effective improvements in the environment and human health in the Asia-Pacific, paving the way for further deployments in the region and globally.

Key responsibilities:

1) Undertake qualitative research in 12 RISE sites with a focus on the intervention research components

·         Participate in training on data collection methods.

·         Assist to develop the RISE Makassar qualitative research work plan, ensuring coordination with other Objectives.

·         Undertake observation, key informant interviews, focus group discussions and in-depth interviews across all sites.

·         Ensure full documentation of the above activities in English and uploading to RISE database.

·         Support RISE researchers with analysis and writing as required.

2) Undertake qualitative research on the implementation research components in Makassar

·         Data collected here will be absolutely critical to the global reach of the findings because it will provide the evidence and framework for scaling up across different contexts.

·         Examine program implementation outcomes (for the 'what' and 'how') to generate a clear sense of the real life issues that hinder or support the ultimate success or failure of the intervention, as well as the success or failure of various parts of the intervention and methods of implementation.

·         Coordinate across the research team providing detailed documentation of regularly conducted interviews and focus groups of the research team members over the life of the study to know when and why decisions are made, keep an eye on the various stakeholders, changes in policy contexts and other events, community dynamics that facilitate or otherwise etc.

3) Support community fieldwork, documentation, reporting, and any other duties required

·         Support the team of community fieldworkers, providing surge capacity for community engagement processes and sample collection activities.

·         Maintain accurate records in the field and ensure traceability of all data and sample collections

·         Provide input to periodic reporting on activities to programme partners

Key result areas:

1. Timely achievement of all qualitative research activities and outputs

2. Effective communication and coordination with other community field workers and community members to ensure proper understanding of and continued support for RISE procedures and activities.

Required qualifications and experience:

At least a Bachelor degree or equivalent in social science, anthropology, sociology, or related discipline.  A high school certificate with at least five years’ relevant experience can be accepted in lieu of a Bachelor degree.

Familiarity and practical experience with:

(i)                   Qualitative research methods, such as focus groups, key informant interviews, and participant observation.

(ii)                 Community development and participatory action research

(iii)                experience with or strong interest in academic research

Interested applicants are requested to submit their CV and application to jane.wardani@gmail.com  and  matthew.french@monash.edu by 12 March 2018 at the latest.

Please ensure to put the post you apply for in the subject line of your e-mail.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.