VillageReach
Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights Officer
🇲🇼Lilongwe, Central Region, Malawi15 days ago
SeniorFull TimeEN
VillageReach transforms health care delivery to reach everyone. We are driven by a vision of a world where each person has the health care needed to thrive. VillageReach’s goal is to reduce inequities in access to quality primary health care for 350 million people by 2030. We work with governments, the private sector, partners and communities to build responsive primary health care systems that deliver health products, information and services to the most under-reached. As a locally driven and globally connected organization, VillageReach has offices in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and the United States.
The Comprehensive Health Options through Innovative Community Engagement (CHOICE) project is a seven-year (February 2025 – March 2032), multi-country initiative implemented in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and Oxfam Canada. It aims to advance bodily autonomy and expand access to comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) services for marginalized populations, including women, girls, adolescents, and individuals of diverse Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression, and Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC). The project addresses barriers at individual, community, institutional, and societal levels through three pillars: strengthening individual agency and community support for SRHR; improving the capacity of health systems to deliver youth-friendly and inclusive services, including contraception and safe abortion care; and strengthening civil society advocacy.
The Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) Officer will coordinate and implement VillageReach-led SRHR activities under the CHOICE Project, focusing on digital and community engagement, provider capacity building, and strengthening SRHR service delivery. This role supports VillageReach’s broader strategic objective to increase equitable access to quality healthcare for under-reached populations.
This position will directly report to the Health Informatics Specialist and ultimately report to the VillageReach Malawi Country Director.
VillageReach has ten (10) Organizational Competencies that describe how we work together and get things done that are grouped into three strategic areas of Achieving Great Results, Setting Direction and, Bringing Others With you. For a full description, please download our Organizational Competency document.
Achieving Great Results:
1. Risk Taking and Innovation
· Key Behaviors: Comfort with ambiguity, curiosity, adaptability, unconstrained and undeterred creativity, resourcefulness.
2. Business Judgement
· Key Behaviors: Getting to root causes, understanding environment, navigating complexity and ambiguity, entrepreneurial energy.
3. Building Strong Teams
· Key Behaviors: Trust in Subject Matter Experts (SME’s); radical candor to resolve conflict, hold each other accountable as colleagues, focused on results, commitment to mission.
Setting Direction:
4. Compelling Communication
· Key Behaviors: Clear and evidence-based communication, audience adaptability, curious listener.
5. Resilient Self Leadership
· Key Behaviors: Self-aware, plan how one shows up, emotionally intelligent, use one’s own agency and takes accountability.
6. Stewardship and Personal Alignment
· Key Behaviors: Take ownership, display ethical conduct, effective at resource management, alignment of personal objectives with organizational goals and mission, focus on continuous improvement and sustainability.
Bringing Others with You:
7. Influencing Leadership
· Key Behaviors: Cultivate trust, influences to make change, navigate the matrix structure.
8. Radical Partnership
· Key Behaviors: Share information and credit, address conflict, increase impact through collaboration, political and contextual awareness.
9. Cultivates a Growth Mindset
· Key Behaviors: Seek out diverse input, demonstrate flexibility in thinking and curiosity, embrace challenges, demonstrate persistence, seek learning opportunities.
10. Cultural Intelligence and Inclusion
· Key Behaviors: Continuous learning and ally-ship across cultural lines, challenge prejudice and bias, modeled in one’s own behavior.
Requirements
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
This position may supervise 4 Health Hotline Workers under the CHOICE Project.
· Diploma or Bachelor’s degree in Public Health, Nursing, Community Development, or related field.
· Minimum 2–3 years of experience in SRHR programming, particularly youth-focused.
· Experience with peer education and digital health tools (e.g., WhatsApp, Facebook, SMS and other mobile-based platforms).
· Strong familiarity with Malawi’s SRHR landscape and health system.
· Experience coordinating field-based, multi-stakeholder activities.
· Established cultural competency in partnering with racial, cultural and linguistically diverse groups.
· Demonstrated understanding of challenges with working in rural, underserved and low-income context; experience living in and/or working in a low-income country a plus.
· Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite (Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel) and comfortable in a fast-paced technical environment.
· Proficiency in English and Chichewa (additional local languages an asset).
· Strong communication, facilitation, and report-writing skills.
· Willingness to travel to rural areas within project districts.
· Competency in Microsoft Office Suite and mobile-based platforms.
VillageReach employees typically work in a shared, open environment with task and conference rooms accessible to employees for privacy and meetings. The noise level in the work environment is usually quiet. Due to the time zone differences across our USA, Kenya and Country Offices and location of other global staff, we have established core collaboration hours between 6am Pacific Time and 18:00 South Africa Time (GMT+1) Monday through Thursday. All staff, regardless of location are expected to be available between these hours. During Daylight Savings Time, this allows for 12 hours per week (3 hours/day) of collaboration time and during Standard Time, 8 hours (2 hours/day). We do not hold cross-office meetings on Friday.
The SRHR Officer will spend approximately 70% of the time sitting, primarily while working on reports, digital content development, remote coordination, and attending virtual meetings. About 30% of the time will involve standing, walking, and other physical activities during community events, field visits, trainings, and stakeholder engagements.
The role may occasionally require lifting materials (e.g., IEC materials, banners, training kits) weighing up to 10 kilograms (22 pounds). Good vision is required for reading printed and digital materials, using a computer, and reviewing detailed information. The position may involve travel to rural and remote areas with limited infrastructure, requiring flexibility in working conditions, including exposure to heat, dust, and long hours during community campaigns or events. Core working hours will align with VillageReach’s established collaboration window across global teams.
VillageReach is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer committed to workforce diversity. We believe that diverse, equitably weighted perspectives foster an organizational capacity to create novel solutions that improve health in the most under-reached and hard-to-reach areas. To align our values, innovations and impact, VillageReach is committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse global workforce.
This is an immediate hire and therefore resumes will be reviewed on a rolling basis until 20th June, 2025. To apply, please submit your resume and a cover letter to our online portal: http://www.villagereach.org/join-us/. In your cover letter, please address (1)Why you are interested in this position, (2)What is one reason you think you’d be a good fit for this position and, (3)what is one strength you would bring to this position?
The hiring process will include the following steps:
1. Review submitted applications
2. Conduct 20-30 minute screening interviews for shortlisted candidates
3. Conduct skills and value-based interviews for 3-5 candidates.
4. Request that top candidates submit a practical assessment (designed to take no more than two hours to complete). Sometimes the assignment will occur before the interview.
5. Conduct final interview if necessary
6. Request references
7. Make offer
8. Conduct background check
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted, but candidates who proceed to step 2 will be notified if they are not chosen for step 3.
VillageReach is committed to promoting the welfare of children, young people, adults, and beneficiaries with whom it engages. We expect everyone working with us to share this commitment through our code of conduct. All offers of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and appropriate screening checks, which may include criminal records. VillageReach participates in the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme and, in line with this Scheme, we will request information from job applicants’ previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse, and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By applying, the job applicant confirms his/her understanding of these recruitment procedures.
Benefits
VillageReach has an established compensation structure that is based on the relevant market and internally transparent. We hire people into the established range based on one’s experience and education and considering internal equity. We do not inquire about salary history. Please refer to our compensation overview on our website for more information and for more information on employee benefits.