Individual Local Consultant Legal Counseling Services

Legal counseling Services for Women in community based centers.
NATIONAL  CONSULTANT
Location :Gaza city with ability to travel to Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun,Al Maghazi and Al-Mawasi areas.
Additional Category    Women Income generating Programmes
Type of Contract :SSA
Post Level :National Consultant
Languages Required :Arabic 
Starting Date : (date when the selected candidate is expected to start)    20-Nov-2011
Duration of Initial Contract :  4 months
Expected Duration of Assignment :4 months

Background

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. Placing women's rights at the centre of all its efforts, UN Women will lead and coordinate United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It will provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States' priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.
Establishment, Rehabilitation and activation of eight women centers in the Gaza strip and West Bank is a programme that builds on UN WOMEN’s previous experience in the Sabaya Programme and adopts the same model. This project is part of a progrmme aimed to cover new geographical locations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and build on physical place for eight women community based centres (CBO’s) in marginalized areas. The importance of this project lies in the fact that the women CBO’s will provide women in remote areas with wide range of services that are hard to reach such as: legal aid, psychosocial help, educational services, vocational trainings, etc., contributing to meeting women’s needs and achieving social and economic security.
In reference to the Needs Assessment conducted at the eight women centers in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the need for legal counseling services was emphasized by all women, especially needs for legal awareness of the Palestinian Family Law (including but not limited to inheritance divorce, and child custody rights, and international laws. In this context, UN WOMEN would like to contract a local lawyer to provide legal counseling services to women in four women community centers in the Gaza Strip; namely Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, Al Maghazi and Al-Mawasi Sabaya centers.

Duties and Responsibilities
The Legal counseling consultant will be working with UN WOMEN under the overall supervision of Economic Security and Rights Project Manager and direct supervision of the Gaza Strip Programme Analyst. The consultant will develop a work plan that is tailored to the legal needs of the women in the four women centers and respond to the needs assessment conducted by UN Women. The work plan should be gender sensitive and should emphasize women’s human rights and legal rights in international and local Palestinian laws  , with a special emphasis on  Family Status  Law in Gaza.
 
The Legal counseling consultant will undertake the following tasks, duties and responsibilities:
-Provide group legal counseling sessions, for the women in the four locations of Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, Al Maghazi and Al-Mawasi. Each session shall include but not limited to, 25 women.
-Provide individual legal counseling and consultations upon women’s requests;
-Document all cases that received individual consultation in each of the women centers in a manner that respects privacy of individuals.
-Refer cases in need of in- depth legal support ( i.e. court representation)  to specialized legal services providers
-Network with existing legal services providers, coalitions and networks for referral of cases and distribution of booklets/ pamphlets on legal issues ;
-Work in full cooperation and coordination with UN WOMEN project team;
-Coordinate all activities with designated women centers’ coordinators (including sessions times and topics) ;
-Draft a work plan to be submitted to UN Women for revision and finalization; use as a reference the needs assessment conducted on women’s needs in the area of legal awareness;
-Regularly update UN Women on progresses and challenges of the assignment;
-Provide a pre-assessment and a post-assessment of women’s general knowledge in legal issues in all locations;
-Report on  results and impact with emphasis on  future needs of legal  awareness sessions by end of training;
-Submit a sign-in sheet for all sessions;
-Submit a midterm report and a  final report with the results of the training and lessons learned;

Time frame:
The assignment is expected to start 20 November, 2011 and to be finalized in four month period. 
Key deliverables (all deliverables will be produced in edited English):
1-Training Work plan for the four locations
2-Narrative Report on the legal counseling services provided  (midterm report and final report);
3-Results of the pre-assessment and post-assessment of women’s legal knowledge.


Competencies
CORE VALUES / GUIDING PRINCIPLES:
-Integrity: Demonstrating consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct;
-Cultural Sensitivity/Valuing diversity: Demonstrating an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrating an international outlook, appreciating differences in values and learning from cultural diversity. 

CORE COMPETENCIES:
-Ethics and Values: Demonstrating / Safeguarding Ethics and Integrity;
-Organizational Awareness: Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment;
-Developing and Empowering People / Coaching and Mentoring: Initiative-taking; coaching and mentoring ability;
-Working in Teams: Acting as a team player and facilitating team work;
-Communicating Information and Ideas: Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively;
-Self-management and Emotional intelligence: Creating synergies through self-control.
-Conflict Management / Negotiating and Resolving Disagreements: Managing conflict;
-Knowledge Sharing / Continuous Learning: Learning and sharing knowledge and encourage the learning of other.

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES:
-Substantial previous experience in legal literacy training;
-Experience in gender development and legal awareness;
-Understanding the social, cultural and geographical context of the location to be trained;
-Strong communication skills;
-Results oriented, flexible and problem solving skills. 
-To demonstrate ability to communicate with women from all walks of life;

Required Skills and Experience
Education:
University Degree in law
A University degree in Gender and women’s studies is an asset.

Experience:
-At least 4 years of relevant professional experience in  law
-At least 3 years experience working with women and women organizations and provision of legal literacy to women groups;
-Ability to interact with people from different walks of life;
-Good interpersonal skills and organizational proficiency;
-Knowledge of the gender legal issues in the Palestinian context;

Language Requirements:
-Fluency in Arabic and colloquial communication skills

Submission of application: Interested candidates must submit application, including complete and up to date CV, as per deadline indicated. To: [email protected]
UN Women will only be able to respond to those applications in which there is further interest.