Youth Engagement Lead - Mastercard Foundation

Mastercard Foundation is a global foundation based in Toronto, Canada with several offices in Africa. Our programs promote financial inclusion and advance education and learning in Africa, primarily for young people, and in Canada for Indigenous youth. The Foundation was established in 2006 through the generosity of Mastercard when it became a public company. From inception, the Foundation was designed to be a separate entity and independent from Mastercard. Our policies, operations, and funding decisions are made by our President and Board of Directors.

The Foundation believes that youth employment is key to unlocking prosperity, both for youth and their societies. Enabling young women and men from disadvantaged communities to secure dignified and fulfilling work will ensure inclusive development and economic growth in Africa.

Values are timeless, they transcend and rise above all. They guide everything we do, as employees of the Foundation. We share a common vision of a world where everyone has the opportunity to learn and prosper. We make mistakes, we reflect, and we grow so that we can impact our world – it’s why we are here. We are ambitious and driven. We encourage you to bring your bold ideas, curiosity, and expertise to your work. We laugh at ourselves and with each other. We are a team. Our journey together makes our impact even more meaningful.

We have entered a very exciting time at the Foundation as we scale up our operations across Africa to realize our Young Africa Works strategy. If you are an experienced youth engagement leader ready to build something new and increase your impact, read on!

THE OPPORTUNITY

Reporting to the Regional Head, Western, Central and North Africa, this newly created role within the Youth Engagement (YE) team will support the development of the Foundation’s youth engagement strategies. As the Lead, YE, you will ensure the inclusion of youth voice in Country and Regional Programs and will manage relationships with partners and Program alumni communities. You will also be championing safeguarding, inclusion, and gender equity by identifying and escalating issues, especially pertaining to safeguarding of youth.

ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW

WAYS YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE

Program design and innovation:

Supporting design of Country and Regional Programs, by:

• Meaningfully engaging and soliciting input from young people and collaborating with colleagues to ensure inclusion of youth perspectives in portfolio and program design.
• Collaborating with Programs and Design and Learning colleagues to embed safeguarding mechanisms into programming.
• Collaborating with Gender lead to provide expertise support to the program teams.

Delivery:

Supporting country and regional program teams with program implementation, by:

• Support implementing partners to build youth engagement and outreach mechanisms, ensuring youth remain at the centre of implementation efforts.
• Manage delivery and redesign of legacy youth program (e.g., Youth Think Tank, YALI, Anzisha).

Stakeholder engagement:

Build and manage relationships with partners, young people, and stakeholders, by:

• Managing initiatives, events, and platforms to engage program alumni and young people more broadly.
• Build youth-focused partnerships with local organizations to enhance impact of Country and Regional Programs.
• Manage relationships with government stakeholders.

People leadership:

• Effectively collaborate with Program Partners, ensuring high quality of work, and alignment with Foundation values, with potential managerial responsibilities.

WHO YOU ARE

• Degree in a related discipline such as International Development, Community Engagement and/or Education.
• Minimum of 10 years of relevant experience in supporting young people, community mobilization, events and communications, preferably in a global context.
• You have experience owning Country and Regional Program strategies with deep expertise in youth engagement, gender equity and / or community development.
• You have service orientation towards the country and its young people.
• You can have nuanced conversations and facilitate disparate views towards shared outcomes in ambiguous situations.
• You can drive towards impact and outcomes and are open to learning and iterating to improve/elevate impact.
• You have a strategic mindset to identify and action high-impact opportunities and to understand their transformative impact.
• You have the ability to effectively communicate, engage and manage relationships with senior external stakeholders, particularly partners and government officials.
• Ability to interact across functional, organizational, and cultural lines and capable of working comfortably with all levels of individuals.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office suite (Word, PowerPoint and Excel).
• Ability to make sound judgement decisions.
• High level of integrity and ethical standards.
• Willing to travel up to 15% of the time within Africa and to Canada.
• You are flexible, adaptable, and able to execute a range of job duties and changing priorities.
• You possess excellent verbal, written, and presentation skills with the ability to articulate information to a variety of constituents across cultures.
• You possess professional maturity, sensitivity with different cultures, and impeccable integrity that exemplify the Foundation’s values.

The Mastercard Foundation values the unique skills and experiences each individual brings to the Foundation and are committed to creating and maintaining an inclusive and accessible environment for everyone. We appreciate your interest, and advise that only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted directly.