Terms of Reference (TOR) for Baseline Assessment in Bosnia and Herzegovina in “Promoting Healthier Lifestyles among Youth in Bosnia and Herzegovina by Challenging Gender Stereotypes II – Young Men Initiative Project II (YMI II)”
Deadline for application: February 8th 2018, 4 p.m. local time.
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, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), in Belgrade, Serbia 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 peace-building, sustainable livelihoods, gender equality and the prevention of gender-based violence.
CARE in the Balkans places the quality of its program at the center of its business and its mission 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.
Background
Young Men Initiative – Promoting Healthier Lifestyles among Youth in Bosnia and Herzegovina by Challenging Gender Stereotypes II or Young Men Initiative II (YMI II) project builds upon CARE´s comprehensive and programmatic effort to fight interpersonal and gender based violence (GBV) as well as to improve gender equality in Bosnia and Herzegovina and address preventative issues related to youth extremism and violence. The YMI II project will be implemented in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Republic of Srpska and the three cantons of the BiH Federation (Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, Sarajevo Canton and third canton that will be selected in the first quarter of the first project year after a conducted assessment reflecting interest of local partners and responsible ministries to be engaged and to cooperate). It will target youth, in particular young men vulnerable to violence and their anti-social behaviors by strengthening the relevant skills, knowledge and attitudes leading to improved behaviors around gender equitable norms and non-violence.
The project that CARE Balkans proposes would continue to build on the success of the first phase and contribute to bringing about positive changes in attitudes and behaviors with young people of secondary school age group that relate directly to health, violence, extremism and gender equality. This would be done by addressing the issues on multiple levels through five main directions of the intervention: a) increasing capacities of youth organizations’ staff to deliver our specialized curriculum, Program Y, and Program Y+ to socially marginalized populations, out of school youth and youth offenders and Program Y++, adapted Program Y for higher grade pupils in elementary schools; b) increasing the number of cantons and or entity ministries that accredit the program and support its scaling up in more schools c) developing new online tools and promoting the use of technology for developing low cost models for implementation and evaluation in targeted schools; d) raising awareness and changing attitudes of youth toward various aspects of health, violence and gender equality and e) supporting and or engaging with existing coalitions of NGO’s and citizens to advocate for comprehensive life skills education in the schools.
CARE builds on the lessons learned from CARE´s previous work involving youth, gender and education, utilizing both research and evaluation in the design of the proposed interventions. It is anticipated that during a three-year implementation period over 30 schools will take part in the project, up to 10,000 young people will be reached directly and about 50,000 indirectly. A committed and more competent network of youth organizations and activists, together with the active engagement of relevant government institutions on all levels, will build a solid basis for sustainability and impact of the main project objectives. Thereby, this initiative will contribute to a long-term goal of young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina being personally and professionally empowered to act as agents of change in their communities, regions and nationally, leading towards a more positive future.
This project aims at scaling up and mainstreaming earlier achievements related to the implementation of the Gender Transformative Life Skills program, or short Program Y, via targeted advocacy and a close cooperation with relevant stakeholder through the support of movement/coalition building through the development of new alliances that engage parents and citizens in supporting gender equality focused life skills education program. Relevant stakeholders include the Ministries of Education at entities and cantonal levels, gender agencies, academic institutions, secondary schools, educators, media and other relevant stakeholders.
The project’s overall goal is to increase the uptake of healthy, nonviolent and gender equitable lifestyles among young men and women in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
As described in detail in previous chapters, the intervention intends to address harmful lifestyles that impact both young men and women. Also, our intention in this phase is impacting social movements and citizen coalitions in the order to encourage government to actively promote/address gender equality, prevent gender based violence, life skills and health education in schools. Through the work with local NGOs active in gender equality promotion and youth development a higher percentage of young people will be reached to learn important life skills and consequently practice more gender equitable attitudes and behaviors. In cooperation and synergy with other similar initiatives implemented by the government and other local and international NGOs, this project would contribute to an overall decrease in school and community based violent incidents involving youth as well as to an increase of healthy, non-violent and gender equitable attitudes and behaviors reported by the targeted youth. Some of potential partners that CARE already contacted and who expressed interest for cooperation for work in elementary and high schools are TPO Foundation, Sarajevo (http://www.tpo.ba/b/novosti1EN.html), Association of cooperation of parents and schools in BiH (http://www.uskoro.ba/).
The goal would be reached through a combination of four expected outcomes as explained below:
Youth NGOs have increased capacities and resources for supporting Program Y and Be a Man clubs in their communities, focusing on marginalized and out of school youth by implementing Program Y+ and Program Y++.
Indicators:
In order to accomplish this, the work of CARE, key local partners and Youth NGOs will be focused on meeting the following three output level results through a set of interlinked activities:
Program Y accredited and is part of a mandatory or extra-curricular school program with its upgraded versions Y+ and Y++ being tested with out-of-school youth and elementary school students.
Indicators:
In order to accomplish this, the work of CARE, key local partners and Youth NGOs will be focused on meeting the following five output level results through a set of interlinked activities:
School educators and students youth peer educators in targeted schools will be trained and their professional teaching and mentoring capacities will be built for implementation of Program Y, establishing and or reinforcement of school based clubs and piloting Program Y+ and Program Y++. At least 75 school educators and 75 students youth peer educators (male-female) from up to 30 schools will be trained and will be motivated to successfully deliver Program Y and new Program Y+ and Y++ workshops through organizing regional teachers counselling and trainings led by key staff from BiH key NGOs and partners from regional component of the YMI II from Serbia and Croatia. At least 150 youth student peer educators will be trained and empowered at youth leadership summer camps for spreading Program Y methodology in its communities. E-course will be developed for teachers/educators and youth peer trainers based on existing online Program M course developed by CARE partner organization Status M from Zagreb and implemented in Croatia in cooperation with responsible Ministry of Education (http://www.m-centar.hr/en/education/)…Participants of the course Internet portal M-center, within which is Internet course “Young Men Initiative” available assured three persons who are overseeing the progress of the group and are available to them during course. The course consists of 4 chapters and that implies that participants finishes all elements of one chapter in order to be able to approach next chapter. Total duration of the course is one month. Participants can register on the course by sending request to our main e-mail address, after which we create an account and send all the necessary info for signing in and start-up. In the beginning and in the end participants fill in pre and post testing and evaluation of the course, in order to assure system of evaluating quality of course conduction and the possibility of continuously specialization of it. Also, in this way we will estimate the efficiency of conduction throughout improvement in knowledge about specified topics.
Youth have increased awareness and improved attitudes related to health, violence and gender equality through participation in group education and youth led-campaigns, on healthy lifestyles, violence prevention and gender equality at the local and national level.
Indicators:
In order to accomplish this, the work of CARE, key local partners and Youth NGOs will be focused on meeting the following two output level results through a set of interlinked activities:
Beside the specific activities related to fulfillment of the project outcomes, there is a set of those that should be implemented during the inception phase and during the entire process, and can be summarized as follows: regular meetings of CARE and key partners for the planning, monitoring, evaluation and reporting purposes, external consultants’ engagements, assessment and research preparation and implementation, field visits and study trips.
Social movements / citizen coalitions activated and/or strengthened to encourage government to actively promote/address gender equality, prevent gender based violence, life skills and health education in schools.
Indicators:
In order to accomplish this, the work of CARE, key local partners and Youth NGOs will be focused on meeting the following four output level results through a set of interlinked activities:
The target group of the project includes state, entity and cantonal ministries responsible for youth, education and health; the state-level agency for education with its coordinating role, educational professionals/teachers; youth aged 15-26 with an emphasis on boys and men in vocational schools; parents; and NGO partners who are developing as national resource centres related to this work.
Beneficiaries: In the early stage, the project will work through educational workshops and campaigns with young men and women in 10-15 secondary schools/communities, reaching over 10,000 youth (approx. 70% male and 30% female) over 3 years. Through campaigns and other related activities 50,000 youth will be targeted indirectly. In addition, Roma youth will be integrated into all activities. Later in the project implementation and following successful policy dialogue and changes in curricula, the beneficiary pool will be expanded to teachers and youth in the entire country.
The intention is to focus on both entities, to a total of 10-15 locations when it comes to reaching the youth; primarily to Sarajevo and Mostar Cantons and Banja Luka area. However, the key partner organizations will reach to other areas where they are already working, like Una-Sana Canton and the area of Srebrenica, Vlasenica and Bratunac. The cooperation with the government will be done on all the levels, from municipalities to entity, cantonal and state levels.
The target group of the project includes entity and cantonal ministries responsible for youth, education and health; educational professionals/teachers; youth aged 13-26 with an emphasis on boys and men and girls and young women in vocational high schools and elementary schools, marginalized and out of school youth; parents; university students and NGO partners who are developing as national resource centres related to this work and Youth NGOs from smaller BiH communities.
Beneficiaries: The project will work through educational workshops and campaigns with young men and women in over 30 secondary schools/communities and in 3 elementary schools, reaching over 10,000 youth (approx. 70% male and 30% female) over 3 years. Through campaigns and other related activities 50,000 youth will be targeted indirectly. In addition, Roma youth and other marginalized youth will be involved in all activities. Later in the project implementation and following successful policy dialogue and changes in curricula, the beneficiary pool will be expanded to teachers and youth in the entire country.
The intention is to focus on both entities, to a total of at least 11 locations when it comes to reaching the youth; primarily to Sarajevo and Mostar Cantons and Banja Luka area. However, the key partner organizations will reach out to other areas where they are already working, Jablanica, Visoko, Tuzla, Gradiška, Bijeljina, Vlasenica, East Sarajevo and Novi Travnik. The cooperation with the government will be done on all the levels, from municipalities to entity, cantonal and state levels.
Committed and more competent network of youth organizations and activists, together with the active engagement of relevant government institutions on all the levels, would build during the project implementation a solid basis for sustainability and impact of the main project objectives. CARE believes that only by providing opportunities for and by engaging young people into gaining new skills and knowledge that positively influence their development and change of attitudes and behavior can we expect them to become agents of change and active and responsible contributors toward a better life and a more optimistic future.
Purpose of the Base line Assesment
The base line assessment will be carried out to contribute to a comprehensive understanding attitudes amongst young men and women (including marginalized groups such as Roma and other marginalized youth, parents, teachers and youth generally) within Bosnia and Herzegovina society participating in the program toward gender based violence, gender equity and healthy life styles in the project inception phase, to work-out lessons learned and to provide recommendations for further action. As part of this process of deconstructing the challenges young men and women face, it is necessary to examine certain social and cultural norms around masculinity. Addressing gender norms both in terms of promoting gender equality and addressing some behavior risks young men and women face around health and violence, requires engaging with young men and women throughout society to address attitudes, beliefs and actions that impact boys and men (and girls and women) choices.
The base line assessment results are intended to contribute to an improvement of gender policies, processes of accreditation and methods of implementing Program M as well as to the accountability towards the stakeholders and taxpayers.
The Consultant is expected to conduct a base line assessment in period from February 10th – October 30th, 2018.
Objectives of the Base line Assesment
The overall objective of the base line evaluation is to assess and to measure understanding and attitudes of main beneficiaries group (high school boys and girls from schools – at least three high schools and one elementary in Banja Luka, two high schools in Sarajevo and eight high schools (school staff) and one elementary school in Mostar, Jablanica and Konjic as well as in eight high schools in eight cities where YNGOs are implementing its activities) where programme intervention will be implemented, parents, teachers, Roma and other youth marginalized groups and youth generally within Bosnia and Herzegovina society toward gender based violence, gender equity and healthy life styles before intervention starts. The base line evaluation will be conducted between February 10th – October 30th, 2018.
Baseline assessment will be done before activities in targeted communities’ starts, in February or in March 2018.
Thus, the specific objectives of this assessment are to confirm the relevance of the action that will be taken by CARE and local partners and to develop additional Program Y models (Program Y+ for working with marginalized youth and Program Y++ for working with pupils of higher grades in elementary schools) based on evaluation results on the order of taking action on effectiveness and efficiency way and additionally to address the criteria of impact and sustainability.
The results of the baseline assessment will be used to inform the implementers, the donor and the involved stakeholders about level of needed intervention and to enable an evidence based adjustment of the action if considered justified.
Subject and focus (scope)
Baseline assessment will be conducted collaboratively between CARE, local partners NGOs, YNGOs and the consultant. Local partners NGOs will secure permissions to enter the schools and collect questionnaires. Leading coordination role is done by the CARE project manager.
Beside the analysis of the intervention logic of the project and by reviewing the relation between the activities and the target output, outcome and impact indicators, the consultant will be responsible for the following aspects while conducting the evaluation:
Main baseline assessment questions
The key research questions underlying the baseline assessment are:
Baseline assessment approach and methods
Research Subjects for Baseline assessment and Quantitative and Qualitative Research
Research subjects will be similar across all three locations (Banja Luka, Sarajevo and Mostar and in eight cities where YNGOs are implementing its activities) in terms of sex, age and a few other characteristics.
February 10th – October 30th, 2018.
Exclusion Criteria:
Research subjects must be young men and women within the age range of 15-17 years and enrolled within the selected intervention high schools and between 13-15 years and enrolled within the selected intervention elementary schools. Roma and other youth marginalized groups might belong to above described age groups consisted by students enrolled in high schools or even might belong to out of schools youth. Aside from these basic requirements, there are no additional exclusion criteria.
Sample Size for quantitative research
In total, we will be involving up to 1500 young men and women from 3 sites in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Banja Luka three high schools and one elementary school, Sarajevo two high schools and one elementary school and Mostar eight schools – school staff and one elementary school) and Smaller scaled baseline research will be done in additional eight smaller communities across BiH with around 800 young men and women where YNGOs are implementing the project activities). Other target groups will be included based on random sample (parents, teachers, teacher’s faculties’ students and Roma and other youth marginalized groups).
The total number of sites and individuals was determined largely on a practical basis, factoring in the average class size or enrollment levels of young men and women in secondary schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the potential scale/reach of the intervention to be evaluated.
Second round of baseline assessment and data collection will be done in September 2018.
Pre and post-intervention Surveys
In order to obtain detailed input from young men and women, we will be using a self-administered questionnaire with young men and women at baseline and endline, in intervention sites. The survey will include sections on background characteristics (e.g. age, ethnicity, parents’ education levels, etc.), and attitudes and behaviors related to gender norms (e.g., household roles), sexual behaviors (e.g., decision-making on contraceptive use or timing of sexual activity), health seeking behaviors (e.g., seeking treatment of STIs) and violence and inter-ethnic relations (e.g., participation in peer violence). By having two rounds of data in intervention sites, we will be able to track changes over time.
Role of the expert
The Research Consultant (RC) is critical partner in the implementation of the YMI baseline assessment and Baseline research. The RC will provide input on the baseline assessment content (study design, sampling approach, indicators, etc.), implementation plan and questionnaire development. RC will be involved in analyzing and interpreting findings, data entering and producing the baseline assessment report. He/she will work in close cooperation with CARE and CARE’s local partnered organization.
In order to produce the requested product, the Consultant will conduct the following:
Indicative workload:
| Desk Research | 2 Days |
| Finalizing baseline questionnaire for work with boys and young men and girls and young women | 2 Days |
| Outline the process of baseline | 2 Days |
| Field Research | 3-4 Days |
| Finalizing baseline questionnaire for work with parents, teachers, teacher’s faculties’ students and Roma and other youth marginalized groups | 2 Days |
| Coding questionnaires and data entering | 3 Days |
| Base line Assessment Report | 5 Days |
| TOTAL | Up to 20 Days |
Timetable
| Timetable | Output | Comments |
| February 12-13, 2018 | Desk research | The consultant will do desk research on the order of getting clear picture for baseline research. |
| February 14-15, 2018 | Finalizing baseline questionnaire for work with boys and young men | Existing questionnaire used in previous CAREs researches will be reviewed and adapted based on specific project goals and intended outcomes and new drafted. |
| February 16 – 17, 2018 | Outline the process of baseline (Training/Meetings with data collectors) | The Consultant will outline the process of baseline and deliver the baseline plan to CARE |
| March 1-15 and September 1-15, 2018 | Field Research | The consultant will organize in the field, if it is necessary, or through skype or phone qualitative research. |
| March 16-31, 2018 | Finalizing baseline questionnaire for work with parents, teachers, teacher’s faculties’ students and Roma and other youth marginalized groups. | Existing questionnaire used in previous CAREs researches will be reviewed and adapted based on specific project goals and intended outcomes and new drafted. |
| April 01- 15, September 15-30, 2018 | Coding questionnaires and data entering | The consultant will do questionnaires coding, data entering and data mining. |
| April 15 -30, 2018 | Reporting process | The consultant will submit to CARE project manager draft of inception baseline report (without data from eight smaller communities where YNGOs are operating) and incorporate comments sent by CARE till April 30th 2018. |
| October 30, 2018 | FINAL Baseline Assessment Report | The final baseline assessment report will be delivered to CARE in electronic format, in English, by October 30, 2018, at latest. |
| The Consultant will be engaged in the period February 10th – October 30th, 2018, for a maximum up to 20 working days. | ||
Due to a limited budget for the Baseline assessment and in order to decrease the travel costs and be realistic time-wise, CARE suggests that instead of planning visits to each of the organizations, the Consultant considers a possibility of conducting some of interviews with partners’ representatives, identified stakeholders and CARE’s project staff through skype. In the case that the Consultant needs to travel, all lodging and travel costs will be covered by the Consultant and should be part of consultant’s daily fee and will be included into the proposed budget. CARE will not be able to pay per diem nor cover any other expenses to the Consultant for the time spent at the field.
The consultant will be paid in two separate instalments.
First payment will be made upon submission the receipt of first invoice and consultancy time sheet (CARE will provide templates) with indicated tasks performed and dates of tasks implementation after first draft of report is submitted, no later than 7 days of submission day.
Second and final payment will be made upon submission the receipt of second invoice and consultancy time sheet with indicated tasks performed and dates of tasks implementation after final report is delivered, no later than 7 days of submission day.
The payment for the work defined in Contract will be made upon the work completion and the final product delivered to CARE, with all the necessary documentation as per CARE’s administrative procedures.
The deadline for application is February 08th 2018, 4 p.m. local time.
CARE invites individual experts, teams of experts, NGOs and agencies for the Balkans 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
Cost (How to apply for this job)?
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 (travel related costs should be included into the budget, if any). If company is applying, beside above listed requests, must enclose proof of tax paid.
Offers should be submitted by February 08th 2018, 4 p.m. local time, to the following address:
Procurement Team, CARE International NW Balkans, Hasana Kaimije 11, 71 000 Sarajevo or to the e-mail address [email protected]
The offer that is chosen by CARE International NW Balkans will be notified in writing by February 09th 2018.
Reports
Following documents have to be submitted in hardcopy and softcopy formats:
Baseline Assessment Report:
Report should be written in English (text must be edited free from spelling mistakes and unclear linguistic formulations).
Coordination/Responsibility
The Consultant(s) is/are expected to include in his/her application:
CARE commits itself to:
The Consultant(s) will report to Saša Petković, PhD, Project Manager, [email protected].
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