Refugee Protection Assistant

Details

Mission and objectives

Our primary purpose at UNHCR is to safeguard the rights and well-being of people who have been forced to flee. Together with partners and communities, we work to ensure that everybody has the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another country. We also strive to secure lasting solutions. For over half a century, UNHCR has helped millions of people to restart their lives. They include refugees, returnees, stateless people, the internally displaced and asylum-seekers. Our protection, shelter, health and education has been crucial, healing broken pasts and building brighter futures.

Context

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was created in 1950, during the aftermath of the Second World War, to help millions of Europeans who had fled or lost their homes. We had three years to complete our work and then disband. Today, over 70 years later, our organization is still hard at work, protecting and assisting refugees around the world. Since 24 February 2022, Romania has received nearly 1.288.187 refugees fleeing directly from Ukraine or coming from Moldova. While most refugees are passing through Romania as a transit country on their way to Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, or other countries, a growing number (over 85,000 at the beginning of July 2022) are remaining in Romania. There they either seek temporary protection status, with over 40,000 such statuses so far granted, or apply for work visas. Romania’s status as both a transit and a destination country necessitates a response premised on three key directions: first, providing immediate, urgently needed protection and assistance to arrivals to Romania; second, ensuring information about and access to legal statuses to which arrivals to Romania may apply, alongside non-discriminatory access to rights and services provided by the government and humanitarian actors, and third, ensuring accountability and effective two-way communication with the refugee population. This UNV assignment is subject to proof of vaccination against Covid-19 with WHO approved vaccine in accordance with UNHCR’s Administrative Instruction on Covid-19 Vaccination and related Safety Measures. Exceptions may be granted on medical grounds. In exceptional circumstances, the recruitment may be completed on the condition that vaccination is obtained within a specified time”. Application to this assignment is exclusively open to individuals residing in Romania, registered as asylum seekers for at least 3 months or as refugees or with similar protective status, including Temporary Protection. Official document as a proof of refugee status is mandatory to submit. The applicant with abovementioned refugee status should submit the official document as a proof of refugee status before and/or during the interview. The applications without the respective document will not be considered for this assignment. The maximum years of service as a Refugee UN Volunteer is 4 years.

Task description

Within the delegated authority and under the overall supervision of the Senior Protection Officer or his/her designated mandated representative(s), and under the direct supervision of the Community Based Protection Associate in Bucharest, the UNV Refugee Protection Assistant will: • Establish regular and stable communication mechanisms with refugees and asylum seekers of different ages, gender and backgrounds in order to gain a better understanding of the refugee population, their concerns and priorities; • Assist UNHCR in disseminating information among refugees and asylum-seekers on available services and their providers, and on the rights and duties of refugees and asylum-seekers in Romania; • Monitor at the local level news and trends on social media to identify where UNHCR can add value to the conversations and contribute to the information that refugees have about their rights, services, and opportunities, in close coordination with the Digital Community Management Assistant. • Monitor conversations at the local level on social media to identify protection risks refugees are facing, or potential rumors and misinformation that UNHCR can help to clarify, in close cooperation with the Digital Community Manager. • Support the establishment of an effective two-way communication mechanism at the national and local level between UNHCR and Ukrainian refugees by using the hotline and social media channels to share useful information with the refugee communities and ensure that proper feedback is provided to Persons of Concern. Refer refugees with protection or assistance needs in a timely manner to relevant services. • Promote and support community engagement, resilience and active participation of refugees in the Romanian social, economic and cultural life by contributing to the organization of social, cultural and recreational events among refugee and host communities; • Assist in exploring opportunities for ensuring that Persons of Concern have access to available national and local services and contribute to developing communication strategies with persons of concern on how to access such services; • In coordination with the supervisor, assist in conducting monitoring visits to Community Based Organizations/refugee-led NGOs/ initiatives and other partners to oversee programme implementation and provide inputs for further planning; • Regularly update and share information related to areas of work, utilizing agreed data collection methods to identify gaps, assess trends and developments; • Contribute to the planning, monitoring and evaluation of any further community outreach activities. • Contribute to age, gender and diversity mainstreaming in all of UNHCR Romania’s activities; • Any other related tasks as may be required or assigned by the supervisor. Results/expected outputs: • As an active UNHCR team member, efficient, timely, responsive, client-friendly and high-quality support rendered to UNHCR and its beneficiaries in the accomplishment of her/his functions, including: o A network of groups and resource persons in the refugee community is developed and maintained, both digitally and in person, where the volunteer acts as a liaison between these groups and persons and UNHCR. o Awareness is increased among refugees around their rights and opportunities in Romania and the services they may access. o The quality of UNHCR’s information to Ukrainian refugees about available services improves. o A timely follow up on and tracking of all feedback received from POCs is ensured. • Age, Gender and Diversity (AGD) perspective is systematically applied, integrated and documented in all activities throughout the assignment. • A final statement of achievements towards volunteerism for peace and development during the assignment, such as reporting on the number of volunteers mobilized, activities participated in and capacities developed.