Terms of Reference for the School Baseline and Endline Research within the Regional Project: “Future for You(th): Young people as Leaders of Life Skills Education in the Balkans”
Project Duration: 1st March 2021 – 29th February 2024
Deadline for application: July 19th 2021
About CARE in the Balkans
CARE’s mission in the region is to contribute to post-war recovery and the socio-economic development of Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo* and Montenegro. CARE in the Balkans consists of Offices in Sarajevo and Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH); in Belgrade, Serbia; Skopje, North Macedonia and Pristina, Kosovo*.
CARE’s work in the Balkans started in 1992, when it provided humanitarian support to people affected by war. In the late 90-ties, CARE shifted its focus in the region from humanitarian post-war assistance and rehabilitation to socio-economic development engaging in interventions directed at conflict prevention and peacebuilding, sustainable livelihoods, gender equality and the prevention of gender-based violence.
CARE in the Balkans places the quality of its program at the centre and has developed a regional strategy that encompasses two main program directions: Gender Equality and Social and Economic Inclusion. The goal of the Social and Economic Inclusion Program is to strengthen capacities and create opportunities for marginalized, socially excluded and poor to integrate into society and access rights. CARE’s Gender Equality Program aims to empower women and girls vulnerable to violence, discrimination and poverty, to reach better life opportunities and social justice. CARE’s engagement and contribution lies in strengthening sustainability of key regional, national and/ or local civil society organizations and networks promoting gender equality and diversity, in the context of social inclusion and non-violence.
Project Summary
Peer and gender-based violence along with unhealthy lifestyles and risk of radicalization remain a pressing problem in schools and juvenile correctional institutions in Western Balkans, fuelled by gender stereotypes and social and cultural norms, and exacerbated by a challenging socio-economic context, with high unemployment and migration rates and political uncertainty. The educational and social welfare systems in the region, generally rigid and obsolete, are not successful enough with current programs in the response to this situation. In 2013, through the Austrian Development Agency (ADA)-funded project Young Man Initiative (YMI), CARE and partners started to advocate for introducing gender transformative life skills programming – such as Program Youth (hereafter, Program Y) – in high schools in Western Balkans, to fight inter-personal and gender-based violence and improve gender equality in the region.
Building on the achievements from YMI, this project will put the emphasis in institutionalization and sustainability, working with ministries and quality assurance institutions for the accreditation of Program Y and the integration of life skills education in national curriculums. It will expand its implementation by piloting the tailored programs in elementary schools and correctional institutions, strengthening the cooperation with pedagogical and teaching universities, and maximizing the use of online tools to ensure the continuity of the program in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic.
CARE’s gender transformative life skills programming reflected in the Program Y will contribute to creating positive and peaceful societies for young people in Serbia, Kosovo*, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina that embrace and promote gender equality and non-violence (Impact). CARE and partners will foster gender-transformative life skills education to become an integral part of education programs at schools and juvenile correctional institutions (Outcome). The focus will be to equip elementary and high schools and universities to effectively deliver and lead the implementation of CARE’s life skills program (Program Y) and support young people in their safe transition to adulthood (Output 1). Furthermore, the project will pilot CARE´s life skills program tailor-made for youth at risk in juvenile correctional institutions (Program Y Plus) to prevent radicalization and contribute to re-socialization (Output 2). All this will be sustained by mobilized communities which will take an active role in initiating the educational policy change, securing stronger public voices for youth within the Future 4 You(th) movement previously initiated by CARE previously (Output 3) and by empowering governmental bodies to develop strategies to institutionalize life skills programming through multi-stakeholder consultation processes (Output 4).
The change the project proposes will be achieved by working directly with 65,690 participants: at least 200 representatives of decision-making government institutions; 500 high and elementary school teachers and education staff; 160 social welfare staff; 47,800 young people from 11 to 30 years old in elementary schools, high schools, universities, as well as youth in communities; at least 17,000 local stake-holders in mobilized communities and at least 30 representatives of seven local partner organizations.
The project will be implemented by CARE in cooperation with seven local partner organizations: Center E8 and SMART Kolektiv from Serbia, SIT and YMCA from Kosovo*, Act for Society Centre from Albania, Institute Perpetuum Mobile from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Status M from Croatia.
Purpose of the School Baseline and Endline Evaluation
The School Baseline Assessment and School Endline Evaluation will be carried out to measure the change in knowledge, attitudes and behavior related to gender-based violence, gender equity, and healthy lifestyles amongst young men and young women (high school students) from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Kosovo* participating in the program, and therefore contributing to a comprehensive understanding of the overall project progress. CARE intends to assess the knowledge level, attitudes, and behaviors of youth by conducting self-administered surveys prior to and after the intervention, so that a comparison and assessment of the project results can be made and will contribute to comprehensive Final Project Evaluation. The assessment contributes thus to the accountability towards our main stakeholders (beneficiaries, donor, wider public) as well as to generate learnings to inform future programming.
The Consultant`s Responsibilities
The Consultant (or a team) will be responsible for the following aspects while conducting the research:
Indicative workload with timetable
| Description of the activities | Number of Days | Timetable |
| School Baseline Assessment | September 2021 | |
| Development of guidelines and determination of final sample size | 2 Days | August 15 – 31 2021 |
| Developing (online) self-administrative baseline questionnaire and consent form (testing included) | 3 Days | August 15 – 31 2021 |
| Action Planning (skype call meeting with partner organization) | 1 Day | September 1 2021 |
| Supervision of the School Baseline Assessment | 3 Days | September 15-30 2021 |
| Coding questionnaires and data entering | 4 Days | October 1- 10 2021 |
| School Baseline Assessment Report (and its summary) | 5 Days | October 30 2021 |
| School Endline Evaluation | November 2023 | |
| Development of guidelines | 1 Day | October 15 -30 2023 |
| Developing (online) self-administrative endline questionnaire and consent form | 3 Days | October 15 – 30 2023 |
| Action Planning (skype call meeting with partner organization) | 1 Day | November 1 2023 |
| Supervision of the School Endline Evaluation | 3 Day | November 1 – 15 2023 |
| Coding questionnaires and data entering | 4 Days | November 15 – 31 2023 |
| Data comparison and analysis | 5 Days | December 1 – 15 2023 |
| School Endline Evaluation Report (and its summary) | 3 Days | December 31 2023 |
| TOTAL | 38 Days |
| Application |
CARE invites individual experts, teams of experts, NGOs and agencies from the Balkan region, familiar with the context and subject of the project in question, to respond to this call and present in details their expertise, experience, division of work and responsibility levels/responsible person (in case of teams or agencies).
Required qualifications
The lowest financial offer won’t be awarded if above criterions are not fulfilled, especially criterions number 1, 2, 4 and 5. These four above listed criteria will bear up to 15% of final evaluation of candidates i.e. up to 60% in total. Financial offer will bear up to 30% while rest of criteria will bear up to 10%.
Application process
If an individual is applying it is necessary to enclose CV with printed hard copies (or e-documents in PDF format on CD) or active web links that indicates experience described in above eligibility section and daily fee/rate per day in Euro and the number of days predicted for the work. The Consultant should make a breakdown of costs in the budget part of the proposal, including different activities and types of costs. If a company is applying, beside above listed requests, it must enclose proof of tax paid.
Offers should be submitted by July 19th 2021 at 4 p.m. to the following address:
Procurement Team, CARE International Balkans, Hasana Kaimije 11, 71 000 Sarajevo or to the e-mail address [email protected] and [email protected]
The offer that is chosen by CARE International Balkans will be notified in writing by July 23rd 2021.
Reports
Following documents have to be submitted in electronic versions:
School Baseline Assessment:
School Baseline Assessment Summary:
School Endline Evaluation:
School Endline Evaluation Summary:
Coordination/Responsibility
The coordination between Consultant, CARE Project Manager and YMI Senior Advisor, partner organization representatives will be done by CARE Project Manager.
CARE commits itself to:
Consultant commits him/herself to:
Payment
The payments will be made in separate 2 installments:
1. For 18 consultancy days in 2021. upon submission of the School Baseline Assessment Report accepted by CARE staff
2. For 20 consultancy days in 2023. upon submission of the School Endline Evaluation Report accepted by CARE staff
Annex 1 – Format for School Baseline Report and School Endline Evaluation Report
Report should include the following chapters:
All data should be disaggregated data based on sex, ethnicity and other vulnerability criteria (i.e. disability)..
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