Head of Partnerships, Rwanda
Position Overview
Educate!, a high-growth and award-winning non-profit social enterprise, is looking for a Head of Partnerships to support Educate!’s external-facing work in Rwanda. This role will manage key partnerships by directly representing the organization to key decision-makers at the Ministry of Education and its affiliated agencies in Rwanda. You will develop and nurture key relationships aligned with the national program strategy, collaborating directly with policymakers to implement competence-based and practical entrepreneurship education at both local and national levels. The head of partnerships will work closely with program strategists and managers to weave government programming insights into our educational approach.
In this role, you will serve as a pivotal figure in driving our Rwanda government engagement strategy, acting as the primary in-country contact for the communications team on government communications, site visits, and branding. You will represent the organization externally, in collaboration with the Regional Director of Partnerships, and contribute to establishing Educate! as a leading partner in the education sector. Additionally, you will provide strategic leadership in events management, steering initiatives that not only enhance Educate!’s brand but also align with our objectives in collaboration with schools and government.
The right person for this role will:
- Have demonstrable negotiation, influencing, and relationship-building skills
- Have the ability to communicate in a clear, concise, and compelling way to a wide range of audiences – including government officials and media
- Plan, prioritize, and organize a complex workload of competing priorities
- Be a strategic thinker and able to craft solutions in an ever-changing environment
- Have excellent written and oral communication skills (including external representation)
About Educate!
Africa has the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population. By 2035, the continent is poised to contribute more people to the global workforce each year than the rest of the world combined.
At Educate! we’re obsessed with impact. We leverage iterative learning to build highly scalable youth employment solutions aimed at unlocking the potential of the world’s youngest continent.
Educate! prepares youth in Africa learn, earn and thrive in today’s economy by:
- introducing an employment-focused school subject into secondary, and
- delivering livelihood bootcamps for out-of-school youth, with a focus on marginalized rural girls and young women.
To date, more than 250,000 youth have been meaningfully impacted across Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya, and along the way, Educate! has become the largest youth employment and skills provider in East Africa.
Educate! is a team of over 250 largely African staff and 300 volunteer youth mentors. We prioritize building an engaging, fulfilling and growth oriented work environment. 50% of our top 30 leaders have been with us for over 5 years, 10+ alumni have started their own organizations and 6 current or former team members were Acumen Fund East Africa fellows.
We have been backed by top foundations such as Imaginable Futures, Big Bang Philanthropy, #startsmall, Generation Unlimited, CIFF and Echidna Giving. Educate! won a 2018 Klaus J. Jacobs Prize and a 2015 WISE Award, and has been highlighted by the World Bank’s S4YE’s Impact Portfolio, an Al Jazeera documentary, BBC, The Brookings Institution as one of 14 case studies on scaling education, and the Gates Foundation as a Goalkeepers Accelerator. In 2022, we received a catalytic investment from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott to scale our systems change work.
Educate!’s long-term vision is to design solutions that measurably impact millions of youth across Africa each year. By 2025, we aim to scale our annual reach by 4x and measurably impact over 400,000 new youth.
Performance Objectives
Government Strategy and Relationship Management 40%
- Set the team’s strategy for working with the government, towards organization goals.
- Coach and train other E! staff on E!’s government engagement strategy (our sales approach) and design activities and structures to promote our team’s understanding of government policies
- Map opportunities for government integration to program elements and build key relationships with Ministries of Education, Youth, and Local Government
- Ensure fidelity of MOU & other agreements with government bodies
- Analyze program design for scale (cost-effectiveness, stakeholder mapping)
- Using E!’s sales approach, create capacity assessment of REB for program integration. Cultivate champions among government, and other stakeholders, to support our efforts
- Ensure government relationships are cultivated and managed appropriately at each level of the team, and develop tools, training, and templates that make this simple for all staff in line with E!’s sales process
- Take ownership of documentation and systems to track partnership conversations, to support remote team collaboration for government engagement
- Create and manage the National Advisory Support (NAS) budget, keep all team’s dashboards and reporting files updated and disseminate reports as necessary
- Develop strategies for local government engagement, and train the team on the same, in line with E!’s government engagement process (sales approach). Ensure all local government actors receive reports and other requested information from Educate! in a timely fashion
- Ensure that national and local government strategic objectives are properly captured in all budgets and work plans
- Represent the organization at relevant local government forums.
Government Reform – 20%
- Work with the wider Policy & Partnerships team, including the Group Director of Policy and Partnerships, to provide technical assistance to the national curriculum reform process, especially in the integration of Educate! model and pedagogical standards.
- Participate and contribute to national workshops on curriculum reform, teacher training, and entrepreneurship assessment, to integrate Educate’s! model and pedagogical standards into the national curriculum.
- Present and advocate for Educate! model and pedagogical standards to Rwanda Education Board & Ministry of Education representatives and staff during the national reform process; Engage and train local government stakeholders on relevant Program elements and proposals
- Develop mechanisms to empower and coach other staff to contribute to the national reform process. Check Educate! staff priorities and plans against the national advisory support strategy & sustainability plan.
- Create proposals & strategies for program expansion & gov’t coordination (i.e. funding, gov’t integration, cost-effectiveness, capacity building)
- Collaborate with Group strategist for scale and sustainability and leadership team to align program design to end-game strategy, based on knowledge of government policy
- Use local knowledge of schools, and local and national government priorities to advise teams on best practices of program implementation.
- Lead the planning and management of Educate sponsored government capacity building workshops
External Relations: 25%
- Ensure all relevant stakeholders receive organizational newsletters, reports, and relevant communication; host report review meetings and influence decision making.
- Form relationships with partners and government stakeholders, organize site visits, and build advocates for the program
- Provide high-level support and oversight to Programs team to ensure program communication at school and district level is appropriate
- Collaborate with External Relations team on fundraising activities (Proposals, meetings, sourcing)
- Propose and execute strategies and communications to advance Educate! advocacy goals, particularly government reform.
- Represent Educate! on working groups & committees to promote our advocacy goals in government, and the broader education sector
- Help grow the E! Exchange brand in Rwanda to attract new investments, talent, and government integration.
- Provide support and coaching to Educate! staff who interact with key stakeholders
Events Management: 15%
- Create and manage media event coverage & media appearances
- Liaise with External Relations team as necessary to execute high-quality donor and stakeholder visits
- Oversee national and district competitions
- Secure relevant approvals for all Educate! events
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree, with a minimum of 5 years of professional experience Familiarity with and experience in the education sector in Rwanda Experience working with governments and successfully implementing joint projects is required.
- Demonstrated maturity sufficient for a senior representative of the organization
- Experience managing a budget demonstrated project management experience; program management experience preferred
- Fluency in English and Kinyarwanda, with strong writing skills in both
- This is a contract position until July 2025.
Application Link: Click here
Deadline: 13th March 2024.
What Is Educate! About?
We’re ambitious. Are you? Educate! is growing fast, so new opportunities are opening up and expanding all the time. We’re inspired by people with drive, and we love to help them reach their full potential. We expect everyone at Educate! to contribute above and beyond their job description, grow their skills, and advance their careers, and we are committed to supporting our staff members on that journey of their careers, and we are committed to supporting our staff members on that journey.
- We put Youth First, Impact-Obsessed – We never forget that Educate! exists to impact youth. We are purpose-driven. We obsess over impact daily and if it doesn’t lead to impact, we want nothing to do with it. We prioritize interacting with and listening to youth. We design and manage the organization to ensure every dollar creates transformative experiences that youth value.
- We Exceed Expectations – We take pride in going above and beyond to achieve the best results. When we know what needs to be done, we do it. We don’t wait to be asked and we don’t stop at what is asked of us. We look for solutions as much as we identify problems.
- We Are Always Learning – We are committed to seeking and applying new knowledge and ideas. We stay open-minded. We know there is always another way and we are excited to learn about it. We continuously look for resources of all kinds from multiple disciplines. We try new things, experiment, grow, and improve. We invest in learning for ourselves and our teams.
- We are One Team, Many Views – We say what we think while treating each other well. We believe that all people have the same inherent value and that diverse ideas and open dialogue fuel excellence. We constantly strive to create an environment where everyone can and does express themselves freely. We support and respect each other as people and colleagues. We act as one team: We prioritize the organization’s mission and goals over team or individual goals.
- We have the Startup Mindset – We will always keep innovating to grow our impact. We aspire to be game-changing. We never think “we have arrived” or “we’re done.” We question the status quo in our industry. We move fast and embrace change to move towards our long-term vision. We’re not afraid of failure. We interrogate anything that slows us down.
Every person at Educate! — from interns to the executive director — is evaluated by how they live up to these five cultural tenets. They are at the core of how we achieve our mission and why we work as well as we do.
Educate is committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all who interact in our community. In creating this environment, we encourage people from a variety of cultures, backgrounds and life experiences to join our diverse team.
Child Safeguarding: Educate! is committed to child-safe/youth-safe recruitment, selection and screening. Our recruitment and selection procedures reflect our commitment to the safety and protection of children in our programs. The successful candidate will be required to provide a satisfactory Certificate of Good Conduct as a condition of employment. We reserve the right to decline to offer employment to an individual or terminate an employment contract with an employee that may pose a risk to children and youth.
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