Consulting Services: Conducting ADOLESCENT GIRLS NEEDS ASSES

Assessment Place: Gaza Strip

Program: Palestinian Community Assistance Program (PCAP) and Adolescence Opportunity Girls Fund (AGOF)

Deadline for Questions: 4 October 2012 no later than 04:00 pm.

Pre-bid Meeting:  1 October 2012 at 12:00 pm
Closing date of application:  10 October 2012 no later than 04:00 pm

Background
Mercy Corps (MC) is a non-profit humanitarian relief and development organization working in the West Bank and Gaza to help Palestinians build a more peaceful and hopeful future. Mercy Corps focuses on relief and recovery efforts in Gaza in response to periodic conflict and ongoing blockade. This includes interventions such as empowerment and capacity building of marginalized groups, youth development, education and economic and business development.  MC is implementing the Palestinian Community Assistance Program (PCAP) which is a three-year program funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the Gaza Strip.  The Youth in Sport (YIS) Program is a component that targets mainly adolescents (12-18 yrs. old) and youth with disability (YWD) (12-28 yrs. old) through a psych-social sport-based curriculum. Under the YIS activities and with a contribution from the NIKE Foundation’s Adolescent Girls Opportunity Fund, Mercy Corps aims to improve its inclusion and empowerment programming for adolescent girls by conducting a comprehensive needs assessment of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 years old. This needs assessment will enhance the content and structure of Mercy Corps’ programs to empower vulnerable and marginalized female adolescents in the Gaza Strip.

Goals and Objectives:            
The proposed research has the following goal and objectives:

Goal:  To contribute to better services for needy and marginalized female adolescents (15-19 years old) in the Gaza Strip by:
1-Enhancing Mercy Corps’ understanding of the community and context of female adolescents (between 15-19 yrs. old) lives in order to better design both the structure and content MC programs for female adolescents in the Gaza Strip.
2-Identifying new areas of intervention that respond to real needs of female adolescents (15-19 yrs. Old) which enabling MC Gaza to more effectively respond to any funding opportunity directly or indirectly targets female adolescent

Objectives:   

1-Identification the primary needs of adolescents girls to expand their opportunities and reduce their vulnerability within the following focus:
a-Social: includes social networks, group membership, relationships of trust and access to wider institutions of society

b-Education: this is composed of non-formal education (e.g. life skills) , formal education opportunities, rights education.

c-Health: access to good health, medical services, primary health-care awareness and care, etc.

d-Economic: includes financial literacy such as credits, savings, and entitlements, besides the possible employment, business, and entrepreneurship opportunities.
2-Identification the key barriers and risks to girls’ social, financial, and human empowerment and inclusion, especially in the most socially restricted, rural, and marginalized areas in the Gaza Strip.
3-Evaluating the availability and efficacy of any related intervention targeting girls, such as aid provision, training, mentoring, studies, and employment; are provided by business, NGOs, and INGOs’ service providers including Mercy Corps.
4-Mapping the evaluation’s results defined above to the gap analyses’ results defined in the first step to identify areas of improvement and growth, and determine which are most interested and applicable to adolescents’ girls in the Gaza Strip.
5-Providing recommendation on better inclusion for girls who are often isolated and excluded, such as out of schools and married girls, and girls with disability.
6-Defining the most appropriate content and structure for new identified interventions, and opportunities for better impact including other approaches, best practices, and potential partners.

-Interested Companies can start collecting the service TOR starting from 25 September 2012 from Mercy Corps Office as per the below address.
-The applications should be submitted to Mercy Corps offices in Gaza located at:

Gaza office,
Abu Galion Building
Ahmad O’rabi Street PO Box 49263
Gaza City
Tel: +972 8 282 6331

-The deadline for the submission of applications is 10 October 2012, no later than 04:00 pm Gaza Time.
-Each applicant should submit two hard sealed copies of the application documents and one soft copy.