Communications Fellow: Maternal and Newborn Healthv

Overview

Jacaranda Health is a nonprofit organization whose mission for the last eight years has been to improve maternal and newborn health outcomes in the public health system. We work hand-in-hand with governments, including county health management teams and Ministries of Health, to deploy affordable and scalable solutions through public hospitals, where the majority of underserved mothers and babies receive care. These solutions include PROMPTS, an AI-enabled text messaging service for mothers, and MENTORS, a facility-based training program equipping frontline nurses with lifesaving skills and knowledge. In Kenya, we are in 22 of Kenya’s busiest counties, who co-own our interventions, and work with us to design what and how we measure impact for effective decision-making. These partnerships have helped us reach 2.4 million women with our solutions across 1,100+ health centers and hospitals and will continue to be the cornerstone of how we approach the path to national scale in Kenya. We have expanded operations within Eswatini and Ghana.

Jacaranda Health is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regards to race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, and other legally protected characteristics.

 

Job Summary

Jacaranda is seeking an experienced Communications Fellow to join its global team. The specialist will play a critical role in amplifying Jacaranda’s growth and influence with target global audiences, including the technical documentation of program impact, narrative write-ups for key strategic grants, and routine and informal reports to demonstrate the impact of donor investment.

 

The role is technical in that it requires the candidate to have a strong, and demonstrated ability to synthesize complex information, such as research, data, and programmatic learnings, into compelling reports and technical briefs. The candidate will work closely with the Communications and Business Developments teams, while maintaining close working relationships with other internal departments (eg. Technology, Quality Assurance, Research, Data Analytics, and Product) to aid in the technical documentation of key projects and programs (see Responsibilities section below). The ideal candidate would be a highly experienced writer with an existing portfolio of technical briefs, publications and reports, with familiarity of the development landscape, and its key stakeholders.

 

This role can be either remote or non-remote, with non-remote candidates expected to already have working status in country, or be responsible for obtaining working eligibility. In rare instances, Jacaranda will support a short-term visa requirement, but this is subject to the discretion of the organization.

 

Location: Nairobi/ Remote

Reports to: Head of Global Communications

Preferred Start Date: March 2024

Main Responsibilities:

Technical writing: documentation and dissemination:

Produce a series of technical deep dives that document the learnings, insights, and findings from Jacaranda’s work, including but not limited to technology design and development, quality assurance, program design, and research activities. Documentation will include technical briefs, toolkits, playbooks and case studies, but will not extend to peer-reviewed papers (which fall under Jacaranda’s Research, Design & Evaluation division).
Support the dissemination of these pieces within global communities of practice, task forces and relevant development media, and so a strong familiarity with these global forums is encouraged.
Grant writing:

Lead/support the technical wrote-up for select grant proposals in accordance with Jacaranda and donor requirements.
Research and identify potential grant opportunities that align with Jacaranda’s strategic objectives and program expansion targets.
Assist in tracking and reporting on grant outcomes, evaluating effectiveness, and supporting ongoing grant management activities.
Routine and informal donor reporting:

Support / lead routine and informal reporting requirements for Jacaranda’s funding partners. This will include:

Technical narrative development for formal donor reporting
Short-form ‘informal’ updates to keep donors abreast of program updates, impact and milestones. The candidate will be involved in developing content to feed into these updates, and identifying creative formats to succinctly communicate programmatic impact with these partners.
Other routine reports, such as annual and quarterly impact reports.
Requirements:

University degree (First Class/ 2:1) (Required)
Demonstrated experience (eg. writing portfolio) in technical writing  such as grant proposals, donor reporting, academic research, policy briefs, technical case studies, and blogs. (Required)
Masters – Communications, Public Health, Development, or related field (Strongly encouraged)
Familiarity with global development donor landscape (Strongly encouraged)
Familiarity with health-related communities of practice (Strongly Encouraged)
Contract Period

This position is expected to be a contract of 12 months, renewable.

Application Deadline

Interested and qualified applicants should submit their applications by 15th March 2024.