Company Profile

WUSC (World University Service of Canada) is a Canadian non-profit organization working to create a better world for all young people. We bring together a diverse network of students, volunteers, schools, governments, and businesses who share this vision. Together, we develop solutions in education, economic opportunities, and empowerment to overcome inequality and exclusion for youth around the world, particularly young women and young refugees. WUSC currently works in 25 countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, with an annual budget of approximately CAD $40 million. We have over 90 staff in our Ottawa office, and over 200 people overseas implementing 16 development projects in collaboration with donors such as Global Affairs Canada, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Mastercard Foundation and the African Development Bank.

Job Description

Call FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS
Consultancy: Communications and Marketing

• Location: Ghana
• Reports to: Project Director, ACTIVATE Project
• Application deadline: 28th October, 2024

INTRODUCTION
The World University Service of Canada (WUSC) is one of Canada’s leading non-profit international development organizations, committed to building a more equitable and sustainable world. Our vision is a more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable world for youth. It is a world in which all young people, especially women and refugees, are empowered to secure a good quality of life for themselves, their families, and their communities. We work with a diverse network of students, volunteers, institutions, governments, and businesses to improve education, economic, and empowerment opportunities for youth, and to improve the lives of millions of disadvantaged people around the world.

The Accelerating Change Through InnoVation in Agricultural TVET (ACTIVATE) program is a 5-year project funded by the Mastercard Foundation, which aims to improve the well-being and resilience of young women and men by strengthening an industry-led demand-driven Agriculture Technical and Vocational Education and Training (ATVET) system nationwide in Ghana. Using an inclusive market systems approach, the program blends education and skills training while building collaboration and linkages among key stakeholders such as public and private actors, academia, and agriculture value chain actors. Over the course of five years, this program will respond to key challenges facing the Agriculture and Adjacent sectors (defined as sectors that are directly or indirectly aligned with agriculture such as ICT and logistics) including:

1. Low quality of ATVET instruction, curriculum and equipment/infrastructure;
2. Non-alignment of new TVET policies and reforms across ministries;
3. Lack of ATVET engagement with industry to understand their human resource needs, poor business skills among young people and insufficient entrepreneurship support to the diverse needs of agripreneurs.
4. Insufficient management capacity of ATVET providers, regulators and support organizations

The project will reduce gender specific barriers, elevate the voice and aspirations of youth and integrate a strong inclusivity lens, with respect to gender and disability.

BACKGROUND
Our preliminary market assessment exercise has revealed that interest levels of students taking up courses in Agriculture Science is very low as a result of the negative perception of agriculture and assumption that a career in agriculture is limited to farming. Though students are from predominantly farming communities and heavily engaged in some form of farming as a source of livelihood, they do not see farming activities as attractive. For instance, approximately 90% of students in the Oti Region are fully engaged in some form of farming activities because they believe there is no other source of livelihood. Later these youth abandon agriculture activities in pursue of other interests. This trend is observed across all the 16 regions with only few of the youth interested in taking up courses at the ATVET (pre-tertiary) level.

The realities that young people face today are further compounded when you layer in the experiences on women, persons with disabilities and displaced persons. Despite being represented within the agriculture sector, these marginalized segments of the youth population continue to face barriers of access to quality, market relevant and inclusive agriculture training. Through consultations with youth, we believe that if conditions were improved, these young people would be the catalyst for growth within agriculture and adjacent sectors.

The ACTIVATE project seeks to change the negative perception and deep rooted social norms about Agriculture by:

• Repositioning agriculture and adjacent sectors as a viable pathway for income generation opportunities for youth
• Inspiring youth to enroll in ATVET skills development programmes, facilitating their entry into the labour market
• Encouraging the youth to venture into Agri-preneurship
• Changing perception of parents, guardians’ opinion leaders, traditional leaders for them to encourage their wards to study courses in ATVET
• Addressing gender and inclusion specific barriers for young people to access ATVET skills and employability skills
• Making information on skill gap needs and career opportunities in agriculture and adjacent sectors readily available to our target participants
• Highlighting the need to engage in responsible Agriculture through the use of innovative farming methods that do not cause environmental degradation

SCOPE OF WORK
Reporting to the ACTIVATE Project Director, and working under the day to-day-direction of the ACTIVATE Communications and Marketing Specialist, and in close coordination with ACTIVATE partners, the Contractor will provide consulting services in the following key areas:

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND ACTIVITIES
In collaboration with the Commission for TVET and Ministry of Food and Agriculture, design the rebranding of ATVET in Ghana; creating a brand identity for ATVET and branding all selected ATVET institutions. Rebranding should consider the following:

• Inclusivity- accessibility, washrooms/changing rooms, representation in marketing materials, etc.
• Climate adaptation, mitigation and innovation
• Physical aesthetics – building presentation, landscaping, signage, etc.)
• Marketing – online presence of AVET institutions (websites and social media
• Develop a campaign to launch the “new ATVET” concept, raise awareness within all 16 regions of Ghana and measure the impact of the campaign.

DELIVERABLES

1. Needs assessment report for 20 institutions
2. Brand identity development and branding of 20 ATVET institutions
3. Awareness creation and enrolment drive in 16 regions of Ghana
4. Website design / improvement for 20 institutions

Tentative Level of Effort and Work Plan

Required Skills or Experience

• Interested consultant(s) should have experience working with persons with disabilities (PWDs) and be able to develop various communication materials that would address communication needs amongst PWDs.
• Experience in executing nationwide communications, marketing and branding project
• Experience working with youth between the ages of 15 to 35
• Technical team should have at least 10 to 15 years’ professional experience in communications and branding
• Lead consultant should be a member of any professional marketing body (CIM, CIMG) with Master’s degree in psychology or Marketing
• Should have a good number of years’ experience working for international brands especially in the development sector
• Have experience in landscape designing and development