Report to: Federal Ministry of Health, Disease Prevention and Control Directorate, Neglected Tropical Diseases Team Leader
Duration: 1.5 years with an option of extension, and a 45 day trial period
Terms: Full time position
Location: Based in the Federal Ministry of Health, NTD Team, Addis Ababa, requiring travel to field.
This position is to assist a joint technical assistance project by the JDC and NALA.
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) is an international non-governmental organization impacting millions of lives in more than 70 countries, leveraging a century’s experience confronting poverty and crisis around the world. JDC began working in Ethiopia in 1983, striving to improve the health and wellbeing of those living in the Gondar region. Today in Ethiopia, JDC is:
Digging potable water wells, building primary schools, and providing vocational training and university scholarships for women.
JDC’s medical program continues to provide life-altering treatment to young people, particularly patients suffering from spinal deformities and those who need heart surgery or treatment for Hodgkin’s disease.
NALA aims to break the poverty cycle by eradicating NTDs and other diseases of poverty. The NALA holistic approach eliminates the root causes of those diseases, leading to sustainable poverty reduction. We aim to achieve our mission by: Assisting regional, national and international actors in designing and implementing programs for controlling Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and other diseases of poverty using community engagement and health education for behavioral change. Researching, developing and testing new NTD control modalities and tools.Advocating for holistic NTD control models with stakeholders and decision makers that promote behavioral change.The JDC/NALA partnership is looking for an experienced Public Health Professional and would like to invite qualified and interested persons to apply for the post.
BACKGROUND
Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) are a diverse group of communicable diseases that affect more than one billion people, costing billions of dollars every year. They mainly affect populations living in poverty, without adequate sanitation and in close contact with infectious vectors and domestic animals and livestock. NTDs deepen marginalization, stigmatization and social and economic burden or rural and economically disadvantaged populations[1].
The FMoH has launched its first national NTD Master Plan in 2013. The 2013-2015 master plan put in place a structure at the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) to coordinate NTD control and elimination interventions and intensified country-wide disease mapping, so as to enhance evidence-based program management. The FMoH Strategic plan for 2016-2020 widens the NTD control efforts, and proposes a holistic approach that includes investment in social and behavioral change, and water, sanitation and hygiene improvements. Nine NTDs are prioritized for intervention: Trachoma, Onchocerciasis, Schistosomiasis, Soil Transmitted Helminthiasis, Lymphatic Filariasis, Podoconiosis, Leishmaniasis, Dracunculiasis (Guinea-Worm Disease) and Scabies. The strategy positions community empowerment and mobilization as central elements to NTD prevention and control, and stipulates that success in achieving the health related sustainable development goals (SDGs) requires active and meaningful participation and ownership by communities and strong partnerships between households and health workers. The strategy aims to utilize the Health Extension Program and Health development army structures as the main driving force for community mobilization.
NALA has been working in Ethiopia to eradicate NTDs since 2008. Throughout these years, a comprehensive learning process has evolved into the formulation of an approach, the NALA model (figure), that enables the community to take charge of sanitation and hygiene improvements targeted towards behavioral change and that result in a measurable reduction in the prevalence of NTDs.
ABOUT THE PROJECTIn light of NALA’s success in creating an effective model for community engagement, the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) and Sightsavers UK has requested NALA to provide technical assistance in developing and coordinating behavioral change and WASH interventions for NTDs, focusing on the F&E elements for Trachoma elimination. Sightsavers UK is a non-profit organization appointed to manage the implementation of the DFID funded Trachoma project in four countries including Ethiopia.
Responsibilities
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