Consultancy on Environment Protection and Climate Change Training for Youth – World Vision Abkhazia

World Vision is a humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.

WV Abkhazia Program is seeking a Consultant with practical experience in designing and running environmental training programs for youth will work with the four target local CSOs and design a youth environmental training program for a one-year training cycle. Please see the Terms of Reference below for details.

Consultants with relevant experience and qualification, providing competitive price, will be selected for assignment.

Abkhazia has been facing international isolation, grapples with a multitude of pressing issues, including chronic poverty, high unemployment, low food security and severe economic distress. The isolation that communities face has a negative impact upon their sense of well-being and their ability to develop professional knowledge and aptitudes. This lack of relevant skills is specifically difficult for children and youth who under these circumstances are not able to live up to their full potential.

World Vision, in a consortium with Action Against Hunger (AAH) and Danish Refugee Council (DRC) have launched the “Building Resilient Communities in Abkhazia” project that aims at making communities in Abkhazia stronger through encouraging an effective participation of all community members with a focus on people with disabilities, youth, women and girls. The project is implemented with a financial support provided by the European Union, its duration is 30 months, i.e. from June 2024 till December 2026.

To achieve the project goal each project partner in the consortium has specific objectives which are designed to support various types of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and community-related topics, all geared towards bolstering communities and enhancing their resilience. In particular, AAH will support local CSOs interested in incorporating youth inclusion and engagement when working with communities to strengthen social inclusion. DRC will support local CSOs when promoting gender specific rights of people with disabilities (PwDs) and their access to public life. World Vision will support local CSOs when engaging youth into environmental protection and disaster risk management activities in their communities using enhanced digital knowledge and skills.

1. Objective of the consultancy

Thus, within its project component, World Vision will support youth by creating Eco Youth Clubs in five target schools to foster youth engagement into the climate change agenda. Four CSOs will be selected through an open call and be trained to work with the target youth in the Eco Youth Clubs to raise their environment awareness, help them develop their overall personal and professional skills set. Moreover, the target youth will be invited to design and implement environmental or greening actions in their local communities and thus increase the local resilience to climate change but also increase the local understanding of environmental issues. One of the four CSOs with a strongest capacity will be defined to take a leading role for the other three to foster intra-CSO cooperation, coordination and learning. This will include a provision of supportive supervision to other CSOs when implementing the Youth Training program, including provision of technical support as well as training methodology support. Moreover, the leading CSO will be in liaison with the engaged international expert on environmental youth training programming to refer questions regarding the youth training program implementation.

The International Consultant with practical experience in designing and running environmental training programs for youth will work with the four target local CSOs and design a youth environmental training program for a one-year training cycle. The manual should include at least 30 sessions covering a variety of topics like Climate Change and adaptation measures, Sustainable Development, Disaster Risk Management etc. The developed training materials should be up to date, adjusted to the target youth age group, provide some creative and innovative approaches and solutions. The aim of the training programs is not only to improve the youth’s understanding of environmental issues theoretically but also enable them with practical green skills to drive change, promote eco-friendly practices, and contribute to a greener and more sustainable future by developing innovative solutions for environmental challenges. Small grants will be provided to Eco-Clubs for implementing their green initiatives. Moreover, the designed training materials should include not only the manual, but also ToT materials to enable the selected CSOs to effectively run the training program in the target eco-clubs, hand-outs, green action success stories from around the world, etc.

In addition, for the first year of running the ECO Youth Clubs the consultancy will extend for providing a technical support to the engaged CSOs when running the developed Youth Training program as per need.

Once the training program is designed, the consultant will conduct a ToT on the developed training program for 12 staff of the four identified environment-focused NGOs. The in-country training will run for three full days and will include both a technical training on different environment related topics, but also a ToT on the developed youth training program. This training will enable the staff from the four local CSOs to run the training program across five ECO Youth Clubs in an interactive, interesting and fun way.

Gender mainstreaming

World Vision seeks to elaborate gender specific and gender sensitive approaches to promote and integrate gender equality in targeted communities of Abkhazia. Promotion of gender equality should be mainstreamed into all programs, materials, and activities implemented or supported by World Vision.

1. Key Outputs and Methodology

The key expected outputs of this consultancy are:

1. To conduct a remote knowledge assessment of the target CSO specialists engaged in the project implementation and use the assessment data as a basis for designing the training program and content (2 days).
2. To design a youth environmental training program for a one-year training cycle including at least 30 sessions (both the Trainer’s book and the Training book) covering topics of Climate Change and adaptation measures, Sustainable Development, Disaster Risk Management. Moreover, the developed materials should include pre and post tests, possible handouts, a short summary, etc. (10 days)
3. To deliver a three-days in-country ToT on the developed training program for 12 staff of the four environment-focused CSOs+3 WV staff (October – November 2024) (3 days)
4. To provide ongoing online support to the four environment focused CSOs over the first year of the program implementation (18 consultancy hours)
5. To produce a Consultancy Report reflecting on the main achievements, challenges, recommendations in relation to the further capacity building of the target specialists (based on provided template) (2 days)

Inter alia the project teams (both WV and Project Partner) will be participating in the training sessions to further build their capacity on environment protection skills and get empowered to ensure quality monitoring of this project activity.

In terms of Methodology, the consultant shall:

• Work with WV Regional office to agree on any technical issues related to development of the Training Program and approaches to be used that take into considerations the specific operating context of Abkhazia;
• Work with WV project team and the leading CSO to ensure the training program is relevant to the local context and builds upon the available secondary data to efficiently introduce the most up to date approaches in environment protection and climate change.
• Ensure that the training program is gender sensitive, e.g. to assess gender related differences through challenging the participants on the gender perception issues throughout the training course and facilitate discussions on local practices and norms in regards to the training subject.

1. Qualifications and Experience Required

The Consultant shall have:

• Strong technical experience in environment protection and climate change
• Strong awareness on Child Protection and Gender
• Strong experience in conducting training / ToT
• Relevant university degree
• Ability to work independently with little direction
• Strong English communication (oral and written), knowledge of Russian is an asset
• Cross-cultural sensitivity, flexible world view and emotional maturity
• Willingness and ability to interact with staff, community and primary/secondary stakeholders
• Relevant computer skills necessary to execute well-designed, professional documents

1. Timeframe:

The consultancy is expected to be conducted in September 2024 – June 2025 for 20 days in total.
Consultancy Cost Coverage:

The consultancy has a lump sum budget and any incurring expenses should be covered by it (e.g. service fee, travel and visa cost, health insurance, taxation). The consultant is responsible for budget breakdown for particular activities within the submitted offer.

World Vision Abkhazia Program Team will provide only logistical support and transportation for field work within Abkhazia.

Consultancy fee will be paid upon completion of the responsibilities as per the TOR and acceptance of the Consultancy report by World Vision.

Application package should include:

• Business Questionnaire Form, including CV
• Signed Code of Conduct
• Detailed methodology
• List of similar projects implemented for the past three years