NGO Atina

Project title: Making a Difference for Refugee Children in Europe

INTRODUCTION

NGO Atina was founded in 2003, as a response of women's movement activists in Serbia to the issue of human trafficking and the lack of adequate programs for long-term support of the victims and assistance in social inclusion. At the time, there were several organizations active in this field, which were providing short-term and non-structured assistance to victims of human trafficking - through accommodation in shelters and counseling through a hotline. Hence, the idea of NGO Atina was the change in focus from the current basic assistance programs (which are completely inadequate when it comes to achieving the long-term effects in the treatment and inclusion of identified victims of human trafficking) to the more general one - an approach based on knowledge of, and respect for, human rights, notably the rights appointed in the CEDAW Convention and the Convention on Children’s Rights, through prevention of gender-based violence, influencing the causes of entering the situation of trafficking, and empowering victims of this type of flagrant violations.

Given the lack of standards for evaluating the success of the existing programs, and the results of research that questioned the reasons why victims refuse a variety of assistance programs, Atina’s starting point is the creation of program activities according to the demands and needs of victims, and thus the program has been profiled as a program for SOCIAL INCLUSION, as opposed to the existing programs - REHABILITATION, with indications of (RE)INTEGRATION. The key difference, among other things, is the effort of NGO Atina to use its interventions, with full participation, cooperation and consent of the beneficiaries, in order to affect the causes of entering the situation of trafficking – relations in primary and secondary family, poverty, marginalization and discrimination, inability to exercise fundamental rights, and other.

In the field of migration policy, in collaboration with the Group 484 and Save the Children, Atina actively participated in the analysis of the phenomenon of children on the move in the Republic of Serbia and the formulation of recommendations for the improvement of their care.

In the context of the refugee crisis, Atina has provided support through mobile teams with a focus on women and children victims of trafficking and gender-based violence and, as such, has provided support for tens of thousands of refugees.

RATIONALE

The biggest gap in working with children from refugee population is inconsistent use of formal referral mechanisms between the Serbian authorities and humanitarian agencies working on child protection. Many agencies report that child protection is one of their core activities, especially the identification and referral of unaccompanied and separated children; however, there were no formal referral mechanisms on the ground in any sites. In some locations, there were informal referral pathways, but understanding and use of those mechanisms varied according to each organization. Also one of the huge gaps is that there is no feedback on referrals. Across the country, there were significant programming gaps for child protection, and in particular case management of sensitive cases such as unaccompanied and separated children and safe spaces for youth. There are no appropriate alternative care arrangements for unaccompanied children. At each site they were accommodated in the same general accommodation area as all others. Foster care services were identified as a potential solution but lacked language capacity and are challenged to accept older youth.

SCOPE OF WORK

Monitoring expert will actively work on creating orientation and training of field workers to monitor service providing in the country. Through field workers’ inputs, monitoring expert will create a shadow monitoring report which will show identified gaps in providing services to refugee children. The specific activities will be:

1. Development of methodology for orientation training of the field staff who will conduct the monitoring of service provision in the country - developing the methodology which will provide frame for orientation and training of the field workers who will conduct monitoring of service provision in the country.

2. Development of the orientation for training of the field staff who will conduct the monitoring of service provision in the country – orientation will create instrument toll which will be used by trained field staff, and also guidelines for conducting the monitoring.

3. Training for the field staff who will conduct the monitoring of service provision in the country – a two-day training for the field staff with presentation of orientation and training to make monitoring reports on weekly basis.

4. Monitoring and creation of shadow report – monitoring will be conducted by field workers who will be supervised by monitoring expert. At the end, a shadow monitoring report will be made, consisting from weekly reports of field workers, guidelines for orientation, orientation, instruments for monitoring etc.

5. Presentation of achieved results and closure of activities – presentation on meetings regarding child protection of refugee children and other with similar topics.

OBLIGATIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE MONITORING EXPERT ARE TO:

• Become familiar with all the relevant legal framework and documents of concern for refugee children;

• Develop a methodology for the orientation training of the field staff who will conduct the monitoring of service provision in the country;

• Develop the orientation for training of the field staff who will conduct the monitoring of service provision in the country;

• Conduct training for the field staff who will conduct the monitoring of service provision in the country;

• Monitor and create a shadow report;

• Supervise field staff conducting monitoring;

• Present achieved results and closure of activities;

• Establish contacts with different systems (judiciary, health and social protection system) in order to gather valuable information about refugee children;

• Map relevant actors in the field and cooperate with relevant institutions at the local level - the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration, Red Cross, Center for Social Work, Police Administration, UNHCR, UNICEF, IOM, other civil society organizations, etc.;

• Attend meetings with project manager and staff of NGO Atina;

• Write short, monthly progress reports of conducted activities;

• Develop report of mapped services and referral road-map;

• Present report of mapped services and referral road-map;

TIMEFRAME

These activities are to last nine months and should finish by 31 May 2017.

BUDGET:

NGO Atina will negotiate number of days of engagement with the selected consultant on the basis of the financial offer (gross amount) that will classify the following:

*Add columns as needed depending on the number of activities needed to perform the assignment

Subtotal GBP__________

Other costs (specify) GBP__________

TOTAL GBP__________

The total cost should cover all preparatory work regarding data collection, communication costs between Project team, consultants and organizations (e-mail, telephone, fax, mail).

BIDDING PROCEDURE

Interested consultant should develop and submit the bidding proposal in English language to respond to above mentioned specific tasks no later than 14 October, 2016. The bidding proposal should include:

1. Description and contact details of an expert applying;

2. A clear description of the methodological approach, orientations and how the monitoring will be done;

3. A detailed Budget Proposal (in the required form);

4. CV of expert involved emphasizing only relevant experience;

5. Past performance in similar areas of a consultant applying with reference of previous contracting agencies.

SELECTION CRITERIA

Project team will make decision on the selection of the most successful bidder, subject to the available budget, on the following four criteria:

• University degree in the relevant field

• A minimum of 3 years of relevant experience

• Experience of the candidate in performing similar projects or programs;

• An example of previous work as a reference of previous experience is desirable

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF BID

All bids need to be submitted no later than 14 October at 17:00h in electronic version, to the email marija.cvejic@atina.org.rs. A selection will be made no later than 17 October, 2016 and the selected consultant will be contracted no later than 18 October, 2016.

Only selected candidate will be informed.