UNV: Community-Based Approaches to Child Education & Welfare in Crisis Settings – Yaounde

Organization Mission

Goodness and Mercy Missions (GMM) is a Cameroonian nonprofit organization founded in 2007 and based in the North West Region, holding Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) since 2017. GMM works to break cycles of poverty and vulnerability through education, women’s empowerment, community development, and humanitarian relief, with programmes spanning school sponsorship, computer training, library services, school construction, solar energy distribution, peace building, and emergency assistance to crisis affected families. Through this assignment, GMM aims to strengthen the evidence base underpinning its community-based early childhood education (ECE) work in the Boyo Division and surrounding crisis-affected areas of the North West Region, in alignment with Sustainable Development Goal 4 (Quality Education), with linkages to SDG 1, SDG 5, SDG 10, and SDG 16. The objective is to mobilize a team of academically motivated Online Volunteers to produce a structured comparative review of community-based ECE models implemented across Sub-Saharan Africa, identify viable design principles and delivery mechanisms suited to GMM’s operating context, and inform future programme design, partner engagement, and donor communications. Online Volunteers’ contributions will directly support GMM’s mission of delivering culturally appropriate, community-driven services to children and families affected by the ongoing Anglophone crisis.

Context

Children are among the groups most severely affected by protracted crises. In Cameroon’s North West and South West Regions, the ongoing Anglophone crisis since 2016 has disrupted schooling, displaced families, and weakened the community structures and services that children depend on for learning, protection, health, and psychosocial support. Similar patterns are visible in other crisis-affected settings across Sub-Saharan Africa, including the Lake Chad Basin, the Sahel, and the Great Lakes region. In these contexts, formal service delivery is often interrupted, and community-based approaches that mobilize local caregivers, schools, and grassroots structures become essential to safeguarding children’s education and welfare.Community-based approaches to child education and welfare, which integrate learning with protection, health, nutrition, and psychosocial support delivered through local actors, have emerged as a promising response in fragile settings. Yet these approaches vary widely in design, quality, and outcomes, and consolidated evidence to guide practitioners remains limited. Through this assignment, GMM seeks the support of a team of academically motivated UN Online Volunteers to compile and analyze comparable initiatives across Sub-Saharan Africa, identify viable design principles and delivery mechanisms suited to its operating context in the Boyo Division and surrounding areas, and inform future programme design, partner engagement, and donor communications, in alignment with Sustainable Development Goal 4 (Quality Education) and its linkages to SDG 1, SDG 3, SDG 10, and SDG 16.Online Volunteers will report to GMM’s programme team and collaborate via a shared virtual workspace to ensure coordination and knowledge sharing. Findings will directly support GMM’s mission of delivering culturally appropriate, community-driven services to children and families affected by crisis.

Key Responsibilities

Under the supervision of GMM’s programme team, the team of eight Online Volunteers will collectively produce one consolidated comparative review of community-based approaches to child education and welfare in crisis-affected settings. The eight volunteers will be organized into four working pairs of two volunteers each, with each pair responsible for one of the components below. Pairings are indicative and may be adjusted within the team according to individual backgrounds and interests.

Component 1 – Comparative Framework and Methodology (Volunteers 1 and 2). Lead the design of a clear and replicable framework for assessing community-based child education and welfare models in crisis-affected Sub-Saharan African settings, defining explicit dimensions such as governance and ownership, learning and curriculum, child protection and safeguarding, health and psychosocial support, caregiver and facilitator training, community and parental engagement, financing, and measured outcomes. Establish transparent criteria for selecting case studies and document a short methodological note to guide the work of the whole team.

Component 2 – Literature Review (Volunteers 3 and 4). Conduct a structured review of academic and grey literature on community-based child education and welfare in low-resource and crisis-affected contexts, covering child development in adversity, the rationale for community-based delivery, and recognized quality and protection standards. Review a sufficient body of peer-reviewed and institutional sources and produce consistently formatted summary tables capturing source, main ideas, methodology, key findings, and limitations.

Component 3 – Comparative Case Study Analysis (Volunteers 5 and 6). Apply the agreed framework to a curated set of community-based child education and welfare initiatives drawn from at least four different countries or sub-regional contexts, dividing the case studies between the two volunteers to ensure complementary geographic coverage. Produce structured case narratives suitable for inclusion in a comparative matrix, supported by clear references to source material.

Component 4 – Synthesis, Recommendations, and Visualization (Volunteers 7, 8, 9 and 10). Consolidate findings from the framework, literature review, and case studies into a cross-cutting synthesis that surfaces comparative insights, identifies enabling conditions and constraints, and articulates evidence-informed design principles. Translate these into practical recommendations for GMM, design a comparative matrix presenting all cases side by side, prepare a short visual annex of supporting tables and diagrams, and lead the integration and final editing of all contributions into a single coherent review of approximately 6,000 to 9,000 words, including an accessible executive summary of no more than 1,500 words for practitioners, community partners, and prospective donors.All eight volunteers are expected to coordinate through a shared virtual workspace, hold brief weekly check-ins, and contribute to the final integration of the consolidated review.

Required Skills and Experience

Required education level
Area(s) of specialisation
Required experience

1. Current undergraduate, graduate, or postgraduate enrolment, or a completed degree, in a relevant field such as education, early childhood development, child protection, social work, public health, social sciences, public policy, international development, humanitarian studies, sociology, or psychology.
2. Strong academic writing and research skills in English, with the ability to synthesize complex material in a clear and structured manner.
3. Familiarity with conducting structured literature searches using academic databases, repositories of United Nations agencies, and reputable nongovernmental organization publications.
4. Working knowledge of standard academic referencing styles such as APA, Harvard, or Chicago.
5. Ability to work collaboratively in a small online team, communicate proactively, and meet agreed deadlines. 6. Genuine interest in child education, child welfare and protection, community development, or humanitarian work in low-resource settings. 7. Prior coursework, research, or volunteer experience related to child education, child protection, or Sub-Saharan African development contexts is an asset. 8. Reading knowledge of French is desirable, given the relevance of Francophone Sub-Saharan African case studies.