Risk Communication and Community Engagement: Outbreak Readiness Training — Ethiopia

Overview

In major disease outbreaks, Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) engages and communicates with affected people on their own terms, with evidence-based health promotion, social and behavior change, and participatory approaches that help them protect themselves and their families from infection, slow the spread of disease in communities, and reduce an outbreak’s impacts. The READY initiative is welcoming applications from individuals operating in Ethiopia for an upcoming Risk Communication and Community Engagement  Outbreak Readiness Training. This four-day training aims to strengthen technical and operational leadership to plan and execute RCCE readiness and response in large-scale outbreaks with considerations for humanitarian contexts.

When and Where

The in-person training will take place from January 31 to February 3, 2023, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In addition, there will be two 90-minute virtual pre-training sessions in December 2022 or January 2023 (based on participant availability) focused on an introduction to infectious disease outbreaks in humanitarian settings and the basic concepts of RCCE. Post-training virtual mentorship (February–April 2023) will be offered to provide continued technical and operational skills-building and technical assistance.

Training Goal

The goal of this training is to strengthen RCCE leadership to drive a more participatory, community-led response in large-scale outbreaks, and facilitate behavior change with data-driven communication. The training will include interactive exercises that link to an evolving outbreak scenario in a humanitarian setting, allowing learners to apply what they have learned and reflect on operational considerations. Thematic content will include:

• RCCE readiness actions and developing a readiness and response plan
• Understanding coordination for public health and humanitarian emergencies
• Applying social and behavior change in outbreaks
• Data collection and analysis (e.g., rapid assessments, community feedback)
• Community-led community engagement
• Messaging: Managing uncertainty and rumors
• Selecting RCCE interventions and messaging for different audience segments
• Monitoring and evaluating RCCE interventions

How to Apply

If you, your staff member, or your organization meet the selection criteria, please complete the application using this online form by November 21, 2022. If you would prefer to apply via email, please contact READY at [email protected] for an offline form. All applicants will be informed if they have been chosen for the training by December 2, 2022.

Eligibility and Selection Criteria

READY welcomes any nominations of specific individuals or organizations to apply for this training. Selection criteria are below.

Priority audiences for workshop participants

• National, local, and international NGOs that are operating in Ethiopia; government and UN representatives are also encouraged to apply.
• Current or future role in planning, managing, and/or executing communication, behavior change and/or community engagement readiness and response to large-scale outbreaks.
• Actively seeking to add or strengthen RCCE technical and operational capacity.
• Experience working in humanitarian and public health response, and multiple technical sectors.

Mandatory criteria

Please note that successful applications will need to confirm:

• Ability to commit to remote and in-person training sessions
• Ability to participate in written and spoken English (Amharic speakers will be available as co-facilitators)
• At this time, READY is welcoming applications from individuals operating in Ethiopia only.  

Is there a cost for this training?

While there is no training fee, selected individuals will need to commit to attending the two virtual sessions (using Zoom) and the four-day in-person training to participate. READY will support breakfast, tea breaks, and lunch for all four days of training. READY has limited funding available to support travel costs for local/national organizations and lodging for anyone traveling from outside of Addis Ababa who needs it. Funding will be considered on an as-needed basis based on requests. Please indicate support requests on the application form or send an email to [email protected]. READY will discuss expected commitments with individuals during the selection process.