UNITED SIKHS is an international non-profit, non-governmental, humanitarian & advocacy organization, aimed at empowering those in need, especially disadvantaged & minority communities across the world.

Job Title : UNITED SIKHS Director (Projects)

JOB DESCRIPTION

This position-specific job opening is being advertised for the position of Director Projects under the supervision of the Global Humanitarian Aid Director as the primary contact, and a secondary contact as assigned. This position-specific job opening is being advertised for our Educational & Heritage preservation projects  in South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, The Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan).

We are looking to appoint an enthusiastic, self-starter individual, who is committed to the mission and vision of UNITED SIKHS.

Person specification

• Provides senior level technical and policy advice on protecting and preserving heritage of minority communities in disaster relief, war-zones and areas of conflict.
• Provides guidance on educational requirements to preserve literature, history and artifacts related to minority communities in South Asia.
• Prepares policy position papers and reports on human development in the region to uplift minority communities for review.
• Supports the performance of the United Nations educational, heritage preservation and humanitarian mandate including developing partnerships with UN organs on behalf of UNITED SIKHS in South Asia.
• Responsible to develop projects in South Asia targeted specifically in the areas of humanitarian relief, heritage preservation and educational needs of minority communities in South Asia.
• Engages, advises, and supports UNITED SIKHS processes and initiatives aimed at strengthening its engagement in principled humanitarian action, including engagement with all humanitarian actors, on humanitarian policy dialogue as well as engagement with South Asia Member States on humanitarian issues.
• Monitors, analyses and reports on humanitarian developments, educational and heritage preservation projects in war-zones, or areas impacted by disasters.
• Identifies bottlenecks and gaps and develops proposals to improve response systems and mechanisms to include technical assistance in the design of specific coordination and other systems/mechanism and ensures the proper use and spending of donor contributions channelled through UNITED SIKHS.
• Initiates and coordinates activities related to technical cooperation and technical assistance projects in educational development, heritage preservation and disaster response and preparedness; formulates project proposals and relevant project documents; provides technical support to field work; reviews and clears project reports for submission to partners, UN rapporteurs, and world governments.
• Analyses and assists in introducing new technologies for disaster warning/management.
• Organizes and prepares studies on humanitarian, emergency relief and related issues; organizes follows-up work, including inter-agency technical review meetings to support policy development work and decision-making on important issues; and ensures the implementation of recommendations emanating from relevant studies.
• Provides leadership and work-direction to assigned work team, and/or mentors and supervises the work of new/junior officers.
• Performs other duties as required.

Position Specifications

• Demonstratable experience of working with organization related to minority affairs and has experience dealing with the Sikh minority community and other faiths, and is able to potentially communicate on their behalf to the Interfaith groups, NGOs, UN Organs and world governments of South Asia.
• Experience of facilitating online conferences, events and educational seminars etc
• Experience of report writing and Community Voices in English, Urdu and Panjabi
• Strong relationship building skills with the ability to connect with people and influence.
• Leads and/or participates in large, complex projects, to conduct or include disaster assessment or other missions; coordinates international humanitarian/emergency assistance for complex emergency/disaster situations; ensures necessary support (e.g. staff, funding, specialized equipment, supplies, etc.); prepares situation reports to the international community, apprising of situation to date and specifying unmet requirements of stricken countries.

Knowledge, skills and understanding

1. A Master’s degree achieved through completion of a programme on a recognised university’s campus and has experience facilitating large projects and can work in an agile team environment, and provide leadership where needed

2. IT literacy with understanding of IT packages and tool i.e zoom , Eventbrite etc

3. Must have language skills in English, Urdu, Panjabi, Gurmukhi

Salary is negotiable and based on experience.

In order to apply for this position, please send writing samples and a copy of your updated resume to jobs@unitedsikhs.org.

About UNITED SIKHS

We are an international humanitarian relief, advocacy and human development volunteer-based organization with chapters in the USA, Canada, UK, France and India. We run our projects with a constant reminder to ‘Recognize the Human race as One’. On a typical day a UNITED SIKHS volunteer does the following : responds to a request for educational literature from a prison inmate; helps a refugee center in the Netherlands to deal with a family who was being forced to return to Afghanistan , where there is no guarantee of religious freedom; takes legal action for victim of school bullying; writes a letter to a postmaster in California to allow a Sikh postman to wear a Dastaar (turban); runs community education classes at the Educare Center run by UNITED SIKHS interns and volunteers in New York; completes her internship in Panjab and says that she has been humbled; returns to her home country after a pilot study for a Make Poverty History project; helps the FBI trace a missing youth whilst providing advocacy support to the family. And when disaster strikes, our intrepid volunteers have been to all the areas hit by the Tsunami, Katrina and Rita hurricanes, Asian Quakes and Floods.