Call for Proposals for Implementing Partners

Deadline: 16-Aug-21

UN Women is calling for proposals for Implementing Partners to Support access to quality education as well as employment and entrepreneurship training to marginalized women and young women, at an improved scale and at an affordable cost, is at the core of what UN Women aims to achieve.

UN Women seeks the services of a civil society organization working with community-based organizations of women from the most marginalized communities (including but not limited to) scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, minorities, survivors of rape and violence, survivors of trafficking, disabled, women headed households to strengthen their opportunities for digital/professional/vocational skills and employment.

The programme undertakes a holistic approach to empowerment using the pathways of learning, employment and entrepreneurship. The SCE programme enables and offers women opportunities to

re-enter formal education,
undertake vocational education
receive entrepreneurship, training and skills training,
potential employment. SCE offers a comprehensive solution by adopting a holistic approach, leveraging partnerships at all levels, using innovative pedagogies and finance to achieve its objective.

The proposed programme will primarily focus on enabling girls to pursue and complete their higher education through degree colleges (including distance learning), while also mentoring and skilling them in new age focused job roles for all sectors with particular focus on digital skills in AI, coding, Data analysis, and digital economy trades. The focus will be on enrolling into University Colleges and/or online higher education programs in the Greater Metropolitan Region- Mumbai City, Mumbai Suburban, Thane, Palghar & Raigad in Maharashtra. These geographies have been selected based on the following criteria:

Availability and high frequency of transportation for mobility
Strong presence of industry and service sector

Objective of the Proposed Project: To motivate and enable 750 young women to pursue and complete their higher education for degree or diploma and gain employable skill. Further, about 5000 girls and their parents will be sensitized on gender equality and women empowerment.

Strategies

Women and young women’s access to higher education will increase; because relevant support is made easily available to marginalized women and young women.
The gender-responsive capacity of potential employers in the private, public and NGO sector is strengthened to ensure that employment opportunities for women and young women are increased and links have been created to the labor market that increase the value of education and vocational training.
Engagement with community stakeholders, households and individuals to support women and young women’s education and vocational learning and to create positive social norms for women and young women’s education and vocational learning.

Funding Information

The budget range for this proposal should be [INR 1,25,00,000 – INR 1,50,60,000]

Outcome: The proposed three-year program will create a cadre of skilled women, who have completed their higher education and are ready to gainfully participate in formal economy.

Target Audience

Women and girls’ studying in colleges, ITIs, polytechnics and their families/communities(especially from the most marginalized communities (including but not limited to) scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, minorities, survivors of rape and violence, survivors of trafficking, disabled, women headed households) from Greater Metropolitan Region- Mumbai City, Mumbai Suburban, Thane, Palghar & Raigad in Maharashtra.

Competencies

Technical/functional competencies required;
- Five years of work experience on the issue of Gender equality, women’s empowerment, Livelihood, Governance and Violence against Women and related legislations.
- Five years of work experience on managing large scale skills development and placement projects for women and girls.
- Demonstrable experience of designing, conducting and monitoring of trainings/ capacity building workshops on digital/professional/vocational training/ women’s livelihood and employment.
- Understanding of the local context and functional competency in the local languages in Maharashtra; knowledge on the structure and functioning of digital/professional/vocational training system is desirable.
- Demonstrable experience of developing skill training modules.
- Demonstrable experience of networking with private/public sector companies and Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises to facilitate mentorship, exposure visits and employment of women and girls.
- Demonstrable experience in advocacy initiatives with Government institutions and other key stakeholders.
- Demonstrable experience in policy engagement and research on gender, skilling and employment issues.
- Ability to deliver efficiently large-scale mobilization and training programmes in a defined timeline.
- Ability to work with like-minded entities for achieving the targets
- Documenting, analyzing the change in learning outcomes through Monitoring & Evaluation tools.
The CSO/NGO/LEAD organisation should:
- Be duly registered or has the legal basis/mandate as an organization.
- Have an established organisational culture of accountability and commitment to delivery of results.
- Internal programmatic, administrative and financial capacity for budgets of more than $50,000 annually supported with a track record of quality and timely project results.
- Have a permanent office within India and been in operation for at least 5 years.