Empowering Livestock Keepers: How and why VWB/VSF is combating Antimicrobial Resistance
VWB/VSF is actively working to mitigate the risks associated with AMR. Our primary focus is on training Community Animal Health Workers (CAHWs).
Vets Without Borders has an open Gender Specialist volunteer position at Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières (AVSF) in Cambodia, located in Battambang City with travel to rural areas.
Download Volunteer Placement PDFVolunteer Placement Details
Position Title: Gender Specialist
Country: Cambodia
Location: Battambang City with travel to other provinces
Partner Organization: AVSF
Duration: 4 months
Start Date: June – September 2023 (or upon availability)
Pre-departure Training: VWB/VSF will provide training orientation.
Eligibility: Canadian Citizens and Permanent Residents of Canada only
Language: English (essential) Khmer (desirable)
Academic Requirements: University degree in sociology/social science with a specialization in gender studies.
Fundraising: VWB/VSF encourages each volunteer to raise funds towards the organization’s operations.
Volunteer Terms & Conditions
VWB/VSF covers most of the costs of being an overseas volunteer, including:
- Return airfare to placement country
- Visa/permit costs
- The cost of required vaccinations, anti-malarial medication, and overseas emergency travel health insurance
- A monthly living allowance (MLA) that will be paid into the volunteer’s bank account in Canada. The MLA is designed to be sufficient to cover simple housing, basic food requirements, and other typical monthly living expenses.
Our Commitment
Veterinarians Without Borders/Vétérinaires sans Frontière is an equal opportunity employer and values the diversity of our team.
We are committed to inclusive and equitable employment practices and strive to create a workplace that supports diversity, equity, and inclusion. VWB/VSF Canada welcomes applications from all qualified candidates, including members of racialized groups, Indigenous peoples, women, persons with disabilities, and persons of any sexual orientation or gender identity.
Please let us know if you require an accommodation and we will work with you to ensure an equitable hiring process. Thank you for your interest in VWB/VSF Canada.
Overall Goal
The primary purpose of the Gender Specialist volunteer position is to support with the development, management, and implementation of gender-responsive programming. The role will involve working directly with the community members and AVSF Cambodia extension staff, in liaison also with the local coordinator and Asia Program Manager.
Objectives
- Provide direct technical assistance and guidance on women’s economic empowerment for the program and project partners.
- Support the development of tools, systems, processes, and approaches that continuously improve technical excellence and impact in the area of transformative approaches to women’s economic empowerment.
- Lead, coordinate, support, and/or conduct gender and power analyses, effectiveness and efficacy studies, evaluations and needs assessments as required for the program.
- Assist with quantitative/qualitative assessments in targeted communities to assess effectiveness of interventions and overall impact.
- Support the implementing partners to understand the role of gender equality, equity, and women’s economic empowerment for the program impact groups.
- Provide advice on appropriate, gender-sensitive indicators in the performance measurement framework and support colleagues in the monitoring and reporting of program results.
- Work closely with other technical specialists to integrate gender across all program components.
- Facilitate and support a strong learning and knowledge sharing community around gender-transformative practices amongst partners.
- Represent work being done in gender-transformation and women’s economic empowerment under the program in relevant internal and external forums.
All volunteers are expected to promote gender equality, environmental sustainability and good governance within their placement responsibilities.
Skills
Essential
- Technical knowledge and skills in value chain development, business, and market development, and private sector development for women.
- Experience in leading and supervising action research conduction and reporting.
- Experience in delivering training sessions on gender mainstreaming and value chain.
- Excellent collaboration capabilities, and capacity to work productively in teams.
- Experience working with NGOs, Farmer Organizations (FOs), rural communities.
Desirable
- 1-3 years of relevant experience in supporting gender mainstream objectives in an international development/humanitarian context.
- Experience in rural and agricultural communities is considered an asset.
About the Project: VETS
Volunteers Engaged in Gender Responsive Technical Solutions (VETS), funded through the Volunteer Cooperation Program at Global Affairs Canada, will engage 190 volunteers to work with local partner organizations in Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
Volunteers will help create integrated animal health systems to increase the livelihoods and household nutrition of small-scale farmers. The VETS program utilizes the skills of volunteers to build local partner capacity to support community members, primarily women, to reduce poverty. Through improved production of livestock and crops, volunteers help improve family income and nutrition.
The VETS program is built around the One Health concept, which recognizes that the health of people, animals, and the natural environment are interconnected. This project promotes the production of more and better food and increased incomes from livestock, all the while promoting land rehabilitation and conservation for sustainable development.
About Veterinarians Without Borders
In the global south, more than 90 percent of food animals are raised by subsistence farmers. However, small-scale livestock producers, the majority of whom are women, have very limited access to quality and affordable animal health services.
Aside from the risks associated with the loss of valuable livestock that provides important protein and/or income for low-income households, zoonotic diseases that can be passed from animals to humans offer a very real threat to human health on a wider scale.
Veterinarians Without Borders/Vétérinaires sans frontières (VWB/VSF) works for and with communities in need to foster the health of animals, people, and the environments that sustain us. VWB/VSF works nationally and internationally to train animal health workers, increase food security, and improve animal and public health.
VWB/VSF provides overseas volunteer placements for veterinarians and other animal and public health professionals.
