Job Announcement: Communication Officer

Deadline by 5th September 2021

Intersex Asia is looking for a talented communications officer who is able to develop and implement IA’s communication plan. 

Job Description 

Intersex Asia (IA) is recruiting a Communications Officer to join our team. This is an amazing opportunity to work with inspiring intersex leaders who started the Asian intersex movement. 

• Title: Communications Officer (Full-time), 40 hours per week 
• Location: home-based (remote working) 
• Languages Required: English
• Expected duration: 3 months on probation followed by a 9-month contract. It can be extended based on performance and available funds.
• Start Date: 1 October 2021
• Remuneration: USD 2000 per month (gross)
• Application Deadline: 5th September 2021

Intersex Asia is a new autonomous regional network of intersex-led organizations and individuals from Asian countries that work to support, educate and advocate for the rights and lives of intersex individuals and raise awareness on human rights violations and discrimination faced by intersex communities since Feb 2018. Growing the intersex human rights movement in the Asian region is a strategic objective for IA. Towards this end, IA aims to spread education and awareness material on intersex issues. The communications officer would be responsible for curating IA’s communication plan. It works in the Asian region and currently has a strong presence in Taiwan, Indonesia, India, Nepal, Philippines, Vietnam and Bangladesh.

The role

The Communications Officer reports to IA’s Executive Director. S/he is responsible for the planning, implementation and monitoring of IA’s outreach and communication strategies, in coordination with the IA’s Executive Board and member organisations. S/he works in close collaboration with IA’s staff and stakeholders in handling outreach responsibilities related to IA’s programmatic activities.

Why should you apply?

IA is a three-year young intersex-led organisation with a clear vision and mission for advancing intersex rights in the Asian region. We practice constant learning, great levels of self-ownership and workplace empathy. Through the course of your employment, you will enjoy your work, improve your skills and hopefully set a solid foundation for leadership in community-oriented communications, outreach, and intersex rights advocacy. We promise you will get to build a healthy network by interacting with leaders from diverse backgrounds who form part of the IA community and are helping it grow.

Are you up to the challenge?

As a Communications Officer, you will have the opportunity to play a key strategic and creative role in leading IA’s impact in the intersex rights domain. Not only will you increase public literacy around intersex rights, SOGIESC issues, inclusion, bodily autonomy, and human rights protection for intersex people in Asia, you will also channel literacy into mass advocacy. This will in turn maximize the impact of IA’s institutional engagements as well as connect us with the community. This requires two key elements.

First, you have a creative bent of mind. Are you constantly thinking about new and innovative ways to effectively communicate ideas via multiple mediums, galvanize people to stand up for their rights, and introduce punchy, compelling narratives into your work? Do you write brilliant copy that makes people think, swipe, and share? If yes, we want to hear from you.

Second, you are a highly organized person with great time management skills. You enjoy collaborating with colleagues and stakeholders, managing diverse projects with agility, keeping a finger on the pulse of social media trends, and building out a team of passionate intersex rights advocates.

Key Responsibilities:

Social media management

• Assessment of IA’s social media system and proposed new and emerging approaches to digital communications.
• Develop a framework to evaluate the effectiveness of IA’s portfolio of website and social media platforms.
• Develop a framework for the deployment of online and social media tools for strategic and efficient planning and management.
• With communication objectives in mind, work with advocacy, programs and communication focal points to determine the development and maintenance of a 12-month editorial calendar for digital communications.
• Along with the digital editorial, production and technical teams, identify types of creative content across all digital platforms to build awareness and engagement and achieve strategic priorities. 
• Build organisational capacity of digital communications at all levels including IA’s member organisations through knowledge sharing.
• Collaborate with IA’s board members and staff to break down technical concepts surrounding intersex rights into accessible explainers for diverse audiences across age groups and professional domains.
• Strategize social media content based on long-term policy engagements as well as rapid-response events.
• Work with IA staff and member organisations to create video explainers on intersex rights issues and fundraising initiatives, and build out IA’s video vertical.
• Fine-tune IA’s outreach strategy and manage day-to-day posting on social media platforms.
• Collaborate with IA’s research and advocacy staff to manage content and outreach surrounding events, fundraising, quarterly calls, and cross-organizational engagements.

Visual identity development

• Refine IA’s visual identity keeping in mind audience engagement, brand identity, and accessibility.
• Create high-quality, accessible, and shareable infographics, posters, and visual explainers on intersex rights issues using Canva, Adobe, or other design software.
• Prepare graphics for IA’s publications, fundraising documents, pitch decks, etc.

Community and advocacy

• Manage IA’s member organisations and supporter bases via active engagement over social media and email.
• Write IA’s quarterly newsletter for donors, members, and supporters.

Strategic advocacy

• Chalk out strategy, process flows, and blueprints for community engagement and literacy around intersex rights in Asia.
• Maintain a finger on the pulse of (a) social media trends, conversations, cultures, and changing literacy needs of young audiences, as well as (b) trending intersex rights issues in Asia and around the world.
• Over the span of your employment with IA, build out a strategic advocacy team geared towards public advocacy, mass awareness, and citizen engagement.

Project Management Responsibilities

• Manage any consultants or vendors regarding communication-related work. 
• Prepare achievable and detailed plans for all projects. 

Qualifications and working experience

An ideal candidate would have: 

• Extensive experience in content creation and visual design with an expertise in navigating social media platforms and design softwares. We urge applicants from a variety of fields including humanities, social sciences, creative fields, journalism, and marketing to apply.
• Excellent English communication skills including creative copy and storytelling for social media, communicating technical and factual details, writing in terms of impact and readability, and scriptwriting for videos. Knowledge of one or more regional languages is a plus.
• An interest in learning about intersex rights issues with a passion for advocacy, and the ability to effectively articulate the need for all relevant stakeholders to be brought into the fold of the intersex rights movement.
• The ability to take creative initiative and bring new ideas to the table. A willingness to take ownership of the life-cycle of new ideas in terms of conceptualizing, researching, risk assessment, outreach, execution, and closure.
• A highly collaborative approach and good time-management and problem-solving skills. This role involves collaborations with the research and advocacy team, board members and senior staff, external stakeholders, Intersex Asia fellows, volunteers, and social media followers.

Education:

• Masters degree with 5-8 years of experience working in strategic communications or related field, or Bachelors’s degree with 6-8 years of experience in strategic communications or related field. 
• 5+ years of branding and copywriting experience.

Competence and Skills:

• Must have strong media connections at the national, regional and global levels.
• Well versed in key aspects of organisation communication and media relations;
• Mature personality; ability to work in a multicultural setting and a demanding working environment with cross-program, cross-country coordination;
• Strong technical aptitude and expertise with MS office tools (including knowledge of Microsoft Office suite of products: Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and at least one graphic design software. Familiarity with WordPress is highly desirable.
• Familiarity with online communications, including web development and content development writing for the websites;

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills both in oral and written English;
• Strong ability to harness and maintain good relations with media agencies and other relevant institutions and civil society organisations.

Application process

If you think you’re a good fit for this position and want to lead a young non-profit organisation’s communications, outreach, and advocacy initiatives, please apply! We favour candidates who are available to start in this position as soon as possible. All applications should include a resume and brief cover letter (this is important!) explaining your vision, your interests, core capacities and skills for this position.

This is an immediate staffing need and we will be considering all applicants on a rolling basis.

The application must include the following:

• CV/Resume 
• Contact information of two references who are directly related to communications. 
• Cover letter
• Responses to the following questions – no more than one page for each question:
  • Describe an experience of having implemented the communication strategy of an organisation on one particular project. Also, share some samples of content you created in this process. Please make sure to share any press statements/articles that you have written in the past and any design-related samples. 
  • Describe your impression of IA’s social media profiles and provide an assessment of IA’s online presence so far.   

Please send your complete application to: coordinator@intersexasia.org by 5 September 2021. 

Note: Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

Intersex Asia’s equal opportunities statement: 

• Intersex Asia aims to ensure that all full-time and part-time employees, potential employees and other individuals will receive equal treatment, including access to employment, training and opportunities for promotion, regardless of any personal attribute, including but not limited to colour, nationality, national or ethnic origin, race, gender,  sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, domestic circumstances, marital status, pregnancy, trade union membership, gender reassignment, health status, HIV status, religion or belief, age, sexuality, sex characteristics, bodily diversity and disability.
• We encourage intersex individuals, as well as people from ethnic and racial minority backgrounds to apply.
• We want to make sure the recruitment process is accessible to applicants with disabilities, so if you would like us to make any arrangements in this respect, please let us know.