A Call For A Project Lead For SAFE-MIT: A Shared Foundation To Protect Against Risks Of Irregular Migration And Trafficking

Position Title: Project Lead – Full-Time
Project Title: SAFE-MIT: A Shared Foundation to Protect Against Risks of Irregular Migration and Trafficking
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Contract Type: Full-Time (Fixed-Term Employment)
Duration: 16 Months (March 2025 – June 2026)
Reports to: Coordinator (Seefar)

1. Background

Migration dynamics are deeply influenced by access to information, societal expectations, and personal aspirations. The Multi-country MMD III Safe-MIT Project, funded by ICMPD, aims to enhance the shared knowledge and decision-making capabilities of African youth concerning migration. It seeks to equip young people in Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco, and Senegal with the necessary tools to make informed decisions. This is achieved through targeted, age-appropriate, and culturally sensitive school engagement and social media campaigns, all underpinned by robust child protection and safeguarding standards to ensure content integrity.

Implemented by a consortium of African and European civil society organizations, SAFE-MIT not only strengthens South-North partnerships but also empowers African consortium partners, including The Youth Café, to cascade their skills. They will replicate their experience by training selected NGOs in Ethiopia, Uganda, Tunisia, and The Gambia to develop and run migration information campaigns, thereby fostering South–South cooperation and peer-to-peer learning across the continent.

The Youth Café, as a co-implementor, is specifically responsible for implementing project activities in Kenya and providing remote support for activities in Uganda, to address the risks of irregular migration and human trafficking, influencing knowledge, norms, and decision-making among young people across key migration routes.

2. Purpose of the Role

The Project Lead will provide full-time strategic leadership and oversight for the implementation of all project activities in Kenya. This includes guiding the project team, managing key relationships with stakeholders, ensuring quality implementation, and meeting donor compliance requirements. The Project Lead is also the primary focal point between The Youth Café and consortium partners, including the lead applicant, Seefar.

3. Key Responsibilities

A. Project Leadership & Strategic Oversight

  • Provide strategic direction for the planning, execution, and monitoring of the Kenya country component of the MMD III project.

  • Guide the development and review of work plans, activity schedules, and progress tracking tools.

  • Ensure project implementation adheres to objectives, timelines, and donor expectations.

  • Identify and proactively address potential risks to project delivery, especially those common to educational outreach (e.g., delays in obtaining permits from local education authorities, disruptions to school schedules, maintaining consistent collaboration and engagement with schools and teachers, logistical constraints in organizing activities in hard-to-reach areas, and resistance from communities due to distrust or misinformation).

  • Strategize on overcoming key challenges for social media outreach, such as tailoring campaign content for diverse media landscapes and audience behaviours, fostering collaboration across primary and neighbouring countries (if applicable to Kenya's specific SMO activities), and combating misinformation and low trust.

B. Team Leadership & Performance Management

  • Lead and directly supervise project staff and consultants engaged under the project.

  • Champion performance management, fostering effective task distribution and collaboration within the team.

  • Facilitate key internal meetings and guide issue resolution and team reporting.

C. Stakeholder Engagement & Strategic Partnerships

  • Lead engagement efforts with government stakeholders (e.g., Ministry of Education, migration bodies), local authorities, schools, and civil society partners.

  • Represent The Youth Café at project-related events, high-level stakeholder meetings, and donor forums.

  • Cultivate strong relationships with the lead partner and other country teams (refer to Section 6.4 - Coordinator, and Section 6.2 - Members of the Consortium Agreement for overall consortium structure).

  • Drive and leverage collaboration opportunities with Kenyan organizations such as Youth Alive! Kenya (YAK), Organisation of African Youth Kenya (OAYouth), Youth Agenda (YAA), Counter Human Trafficking Trust – East Africa (CHTEA), Awareness Against Human Trafficking (HAART), and MOVE AFRICA among others..

  • Initiate and support joint awareness initiatives on anti-trafficking (e.g., co-hosting online events with HAART and CHTEA).

  • Oversee influencer engagement, leveraging partner influencers for wider audience reach in Kenya.

D. Monitoring, Evaluation, & Adaptive Learning

  • Provide oversight for the implementation of M&E frameworks, including tracking indicators, quality assurance, and evaluation processes.

  • Review and interpret data collected from educational outreach and social media components, ensuring findings inform adaptive project management.

  • Approve and consolidate monthly and quarterly narrative and financial reports for donor submission (refer to Section 7 - Reporting and Expenditure Verification of the Consortium Agreement).

  • Guide efforts to achieve the social media component targets, including 80 curated social media content pieces, 2 developed learning reports and SOP documents, 200 social media ads and posts delivered, 4 experiments conducted, 4 active social media pages with at least 5000 followers, 250,000 individuals seeking more information, and 500,000 individuals with increased knowledge.

E. Financial Oversight & Compliance

  • Ensure the project maintains full compliance with ICMPD/EU regulations and internal policies (refer to Section 4.2 - Compliance with Grant Contract and Section 6 - Financial Arrangements of the Consortium Agreement).

  • Collaborate closely with the Finance & Compliance Officer to ensure prudent financial management, procurement integrity, and audit preparedness (refer to Section 6.6 - Justifying Costs and Section 6.3 - Ineligible Costs of the Consortium Agreement).

F. Educational Outreach Programmatic Oversight (Kenya Focus)

  • Oversee strategic decisions regarding the refinement of target regions and securing necessary authorizations to work in schools in Kenya (Nairobi, Kiambu, Kajiado, Machakos).

  • Provide guidance on the development of one curriculum tailored for Kenya (Activity 1.1.2 - Adapt lesson plans).

  • Approve the selection and establishment of partnerships with approximately 39 schools and teachers in Kenya (Activity 1.2.1 - Engage with schools’ stakeholders).

  • Supervise the execution of teacher training activities, aiming for approximately 75 teachers trained across 14 one-day sessions (Activity 1.2.2 - 54 training sessions for 1200 secondary school teachers).

  • Monitor the delivery of approximately 155 support sessions to schools (Activity 1.2.3 - 620 support visits to schools) and ensure the successful collection of baseline and endline surveys from approximately 1,750 students (Activities 1.3.1 & 1.3.4 - Baseline/Endline surveys with 7,000 students).

  • Guide the team in facilitating approximately 250 support calls with teachers in Kenya (Activity 1.2.4 - 1000 support calls for teachers).

  • Ensure the educational outreach activities uphold an African-led approach, consistently building the capacity of local partners.

  • Champion the long-term sustainability of the Educational Outreach component through strategies focused on local ownership, ongoing capacity building, sustained school engagement, empowered teachers, a highly contextualized curriculum, and robust institutional integration with Ministry endorsements.

G. Social Media Outreach Programmatic Oversight (Kenya & Uganda Support)

  • Support Seefar in the strategic direction for setting up media platforms and running ads in Kenya, and remotely for Uganda, contributing to the overall project goal of reaching over 50,000,000 individuals across the consortium (Activity 2.3.1 - Run 20 ad campaigns on Meta and Tiktok that reach over 50,000,000 individuals).

  • Assist Seefar in guiding social media testing initiatives specific to Kenya and Uganda, including multi-layered content tests and offline testing rounds (Activities 2.2.1 & 2.2.2 - Multi-layered content tests and offline testing).

  • Oversee engagement with influencers, aiming to secure agreements with 1 influencer in Kenya and provide remote support for influencer engagement in Uganda (Activity 2.3.2 - Work with 4 influencers to create and deliver 100 posts).

  • Approve the development and launch of the project website, ensuring the effective integration of Kenya and Uganda-specific content (Activities 3.1.1 & 3.1.2 - Design and test a website; Launch website).

  • Ensure participation in relevant Comms and M&E Trainings for neighbour partners in Uganda as applicable (Activities 3.3.2 - Provide training in communications strategy, social media campaigning, and communications monitoring and evaluation to neighbour partners).

  • Direct the evaluation of social media findings and ensure content delivery to the Future Comms Platform (Activity 2.4.2 - Deliver social media findings, tools and content to the Future Comms Platform).

  • Drive the sustainability of the Social Media component through local ownership, capability building (training in content creation, campaign management, M&E), the development of scalable campaign models, fostering institutional partnerships, and contributing to a robust evidence base for future programming.

4. Deliverables

  • Strategic work plans, activity trackers, and monthly implementation updates.

  • High-quality regular progress reports and critical inputs to donor reporting (quarterly and final) (refer to Section 7 - Reporting and Expenditure Verification of the Consortium Agreement).

  • Key stakeholder engagement documentation and strategic partnership records.

  • Significant contributions to M&E reports, including analytical insights, lessons learned, and compelling case studies.

5. Required Qualifications and Experience

  • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Project Management, Business Administration, Entrepreneurship, International Development, Migration Studies, Education, or related field.

  • Minimum of 5–7 years of experience in project leadership roles, preferably in migration, education, or youth-focused development.

  • Demonstrated experience managing EU- or other significant donor-funded programs.

  • Exceptional leadership, communication, and reporting skills.

  • Proven ability to engage effectively with diverse stakeholders, particularly within the public sector and community-based institutions.

  • Understanding of The Youth Cafe and SAFE-MIT from the inception. 

  • Fluency in English and Kiswahili; knowledge of additional local languages is an asset.

6. Duration and Compensation

  • Duration: 16 months, from March 2025 to July 2026

  • Location: Based in Nairobi, with possible travel within Kenya

  • Compensation: Fixed monthly fee of €1,200 (inclusive of all statutory obligations and taxes) (refer to Section 6.11.2 - Payment Plan of the Consortium Agreement for The Youth Cafe's specific financial allocation and payment schedule).

7. Application Process

Interested candidates should submit:

  • A detailed CV

  • A cover letter outlining relevant experience and suitability

Send applications to: human.resource@theyouthcafe.com and cc: finance@theyouthcafe.com or drop them at The Youth Cafe Reception
Subject Line: “Project Lead – SAFE-MIT MMD III Application”
Deadline: 27th February 2025

Equal Opportunity

The Youth Café is committed to diversity and inclusion. We strongly encourage applications from qualified individuals regardless of gender, ethnicity, disability status, or background.