1. Background
Save the Children international (SCI) is non-governmental organization that works to create lasting, positive change in the lives of children in need. Save the Children leads the implementation of Growth through Nutrition – USAID funded flagship multi-sector nutrition project which aims to improve the nutritional status of pregnant and lactating women and children less than 2 years of age through sustainable, coordinated and evidence-based interventions in four regions (Amhara, Oromia, SNNP and Tigray) of Ethiopia. Growth through Nutrition robust learning agenda supports and guides effective national nutrition policies and practices to reduce under-nutrition.
The Enhanced Community Conversations (ECCs) are intended to be held every month for ten consecutive meetings. Local NGOs are responsible for conducting supportive supervision and monthly meetings with the Community Change Agents who facilitated the ECCs. We are planning to edit the existing Virtual Facilitator (VF)materials to make the ECC session duration no more than an hour and also more attractive.
Social Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) is one of the key components used by the project to improve the community’s knowledge and attitude on key adolescent, maternal and child nutrition and WASH practices. As part of its SBCC strategy, the project works through mass, interpersonal and community channels to deliver messages to the targeted community.
As a community based participatory approach, Growth through Nutrition is implementing ECC sessions without Virtual Facilitators through the project’s local implementing partners and ECC groups in the Year II.
ECCs are conducted at community level, with peer groups of pregnant/lactating women, grandmothers and husbands/fathers, meeting separately to focus on knowledge and skills relevant to their gender or family roles. ECCs included group discussions, games, role plays and songs
designed to build knowledge, skills, attitudes and self-efficacy relevant to 1000 Day behaviors and gender roles. ECCs also regularly included the use of the multi-media SBCC materials (print, audio, songs) specially designed for low-literate audiences, and tailored to each of the three types of peer groups. ECCs is facilitated by trained Community Change Agents (CCAs), who are community members.
The project will revise the VF contents, pretest them, duplicate them and scale them up during Year II. The new scale-up strategy will use cell phones, rather than the digital radios used during USAID/ENGINE, as these are less expensive and readily available in communities.
SCI – Growth through Nutrition program requires a consulting firm that would be able to revise/edit the existing Enhanced Community Conversation (ECC) virtual facilitator (VF) audio materials produced in Amharic, Oromiffa and Tigrigna languages. Therefore, Save the Children would like to invite companies who have the capacity and experience to produce audio narratives to compete for this bid.
Ø The production company should have a fully equipped sound studio with all necessary devices (sound recorders, full-fledged studio inputs, computers and editing software) which are necessary for the audio programs production.
Ø The production company should have an outstanding track record and up-to-date editing/mixing capabilities
Ø Bidders should be legally registered with renewed business license and TIN, or registration certificates from proper government authorities,
Ø Bidders should have a minimum of five years of audio production experience after establishment,
Ø Excellent references from previous clients within the past 3 years
Ø The proposals should be submitted to Save the Children office with sealed documents before the dead line. Any submissions after the closing deadline will be rejected.