Project Coordinator

Vacha Charitable Trust, Mumbai

Vacha is a Resource Centre for Girls and Women based in Mumbai. Vacha means speech, articulation and self-expression. Started as a women’s library and cultural centre in 1987, it was registered as Vacha Charitable Trust in 1990. Envisioning a society built on the principles of social justice, equity and democracy, Vacha establishes safe educational centres for adolescent girls in their _bastis _by providing them with 21stcentury life skills such as computer training, conversational English and social awareness. Vacha ideates and creates learning resources including audio-visual materials, booklets and modules in joint collaboration with the programme participants, Vacha staff and other experts. Vacha’s vision is of world without exploitation, oppression, or discrimination against women, girls or any other section of society. Our mission is to focus on issues of girls and women through educational programmes, resource creation, research, training, networking and awareness building. Belief in girls’ leadership and visibilising girls’ issues at micro and macro level are the core components of our work.

Title of the Position: Project Coordinator, Mumbai and Dombivli

**Position Summary**:
The Project Coordinator reports to the Chief Project Coordinator Mumbai and works with a assistant project coordinator and community organisers in Mumbai and Dombivali Region to design, implement, and manage Vacha’s girls’ empowerment programme in three _bastis _located in Mumbai and Thane district. The person will be responsible for ensuring that the project meets its programme outcomes within the time constraint and the given budget while upholding organizational values. The Project Coordinator will review the projects activities, prepare the project plan and budget plan along with the project teams and monitor the project outcomes. The person will be maintaining the linkages between the field team and the chief project coordinator. She will contribute to ideas, strategic thinking, organizational networking, and collaboration to aid us in achieving our mission.

**Description of the project**:
The project of girls’ empowerment will involve working with girls from the deprived sections to negotiate their current marginalized status and develop resilience to work towards their future goals. Vacha’s main aim is to work towards the empowerment of girls disadvantaged by lower caste status, linguistics and religious minorities under the overarching phenomenon of poverty and gender. Girls’ empowerment programme is a three-pronged approach - Imparting Knowledge, Skills and creating opportunities to exercise learnt knowledge and skills. It has components of soft and hard skills and community actions. Skills acquired are used in community actions. Community actions are planned and executed by youth, girls and boys. In the more conservative communities, there are only girls. However, a total of 30% are boys in girls’ leadership programme. We encourage girls’ leadership and their visibility in the community especially in performing tasks like getting more toilets, getting street lights, etc. With participation in these activities, the success in which directly and positively impacts their lifestyles, their status in their communities goes higher and their self-confidence enhances. We encourage their leadership in a mixed group in every activity or decision
- making bodies. It is compulsory to have at least 50% of girls in all leadership events/activities. It also has a gender sensitization programme for boys. We want boys for themselves as they too are from the same deprived communities but the extreme son preference gives them a higher status in the family and in the community. They enjoy better nutrition and mobility.

The other component of the project will involve gender and health training and sports activities with adolescents in _bastis_, organizing children’s film festival and creation of resources for adolescents.

Job Responsibilities:
a. Project roles
- Project management girls’ resource centre project at four to five locations in Mumbai and Dombivali-Kalyan.
- Working with the project team to prepare strategic and action based project plans.
- Maintaining and following monitoring, review and reporting systems of the projects in alignment with the organization’s vision and mission and sending it on time to the MIS team.
- Regular visits to the field for the project monitoring, occasionally conducting sessions/training programmes with youth and giving inputs for the progress of the project.
- Working with community leaders, community based organisations, women and child development dept., police system, Child Welfare Committee, and other relevant authorities to seek their supports in girls’ leadership programmes.
- Monitoring of the project budgets with the chief project coordinator and ensuring its timely submission to the accounts team.
- Review of field reports