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Programme Manager - Maharashtra 

Application deadline: 1st February 2021​

About Suvita

Suvita is a startup nonprofit working to increase uptake of routine childhood immunisations in India. We are impact-focused and currently deliver two evidence-based programmes to boost attendance at vaccination appointments:

1. Identifying natural community influencers and supporting them to act as immunisation ambassadors

2. Sending SMS reminders directly to new parents and caregivers, to help them remember when their child is due for a vaccination

We mainly work in two states: Bihar and Maharashtra. In Maharashtra, we have recently signed  a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the State Family Welfare Bureau (SFWB), under which we will enroll parents who are registered in the state’s reproductive and child health (RCH) database for text reminders. This is a huge step in our efforts to support the government in ensuring all the state's children can complete their routine immunisation schedule.

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About the role

We are seeking a Programme Manager who will focus on turning our new relationship with the Maharashtra state government into a fully fledged partnership, where we are delivering impactful programmes at scale across Maharashtra. The role requires someone highly organised, proactive, self-managing and conscientious; having strong data and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) skills, and with excellent communication skills in Marathi and English.

 

We expect your role in the first six month to be taken up by these activities:

1. Decide which districts Suvita should expand to for the text reminders programme

2. Work closely with an external evaluation team to evaluate the text reminder programme and link the evaluation to Suvita’s decisions on scaling up

3. Hire additional team members as the programme expands in Maharashtra

 

Questions we expect you will help us grapple with in 2021:

1. What should be the pace of expansion of text reminders intervention in Maharashtra?

2. When and how can we introduce the immunisation ambassador programme in Maharashtra?

3. How and when do we get government approvals to introduce the above?

4. What evidence of impact do we need before we choose to scale up? How do we collect the evidence?

5. How should the two programmes overlap in terms of target areas and staffing?

 

Please note that given our start-up phase and the COVID context, we expect our plans to continue evolving in significant ways over time. 

 

Here's an additional breakdown of activities we envision for this role. 

 

1) Programme setup, delivery and management 

Pilot and scale Suvita’s text reminders programme and immunisation ambassador programme in Maharashtra. This will initially likely be in close collaboration with our academic partners (based on their separate MoU with the SFWB), and later likely include moving towards inclusion of the ambassadors programme in Suvita’s own MoU with the SFWB.

• The above will involve coordinating with:

  • SFWB officials

  • Our external academic partners

  • A range of internal team members e.g. co-founders, Director of Programmes, Bihar field team, technical consultant

• and it will involve a wide range of activities:

  • Getting required government approvals

  • Implementation planning

  • Coordinating the collection and processing of enrollee data to upload it to our back-end systems

  • Recruitment and management of field officers to deliver the programmes under our academic partnership (essentially setting up a phone survey team from scratch)

  • Coordinating translation of key documents

 

2) Monitoring and Evaluation system set-up and delivery

Assist the team with setting up an M&E Response Framework nationally and for Maharashtra to evaluate programme impact and identify opportunities for improvement, initially in collaboration with our academic partners and later on an ongoing basis internally

• Identifying and evaluating key outcome data sources

• Data analysis

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3) Holding government relationships

Build and hold relationships with officials and external consultants in the Maharashtra Public Health Department and SFWB office. 

• Keep them updated on Suvita’s work whilst also being alert to opportunities for us to increase our impact in Maharashtra (for example by identifying government data sources which can help with programme improvement, support government in improved data collection)

• Proactively identify opportunities to strengthen Suvita’s government relationship in Maharashtra, for example by providing data analysis support to government officials where needed

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4) Input into Suvita’s state and national strategy

• Use your unique overarching perspective on our work in Maharashtra to input into strategic decisions with senior management, both for Maharashtra and nationally.

• Help set a vision for Suvita’s work in Maharashtra over the coming months and years, breaking this down into actionable intermediate goals. Then oversee delivering on these.

• Potentially contribute to various activities which strengthen Suvita’s national strategy, dependent on bandwidth, organisational needs and personal skills and fit - for example conducting or coordinating primary or secondary research; leading activities to collect user feedback and understand user needs; strengthening national and state level monitoring and evaluation systems; recruitment.

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Who should apply?

All in a day’s work: In the morning, you coordinate with the government officials for several hours (say to get a letter signed or to get certain data on a USB). Afternoon, you use STATA to analyse RCH data to check for repetitions and upload the data in a system to send out text reminders to parents. Evening, you jump on a weekly update call with the Director of Programmes and other Programme Managers. If you can see yourself thriving in this scenario, please apply!

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Essential requirements

• You have a Bachelor’s degree (Master’s preferred) involving statistics, health economics or a related field

• You are proficient in STATA / R/ Python or highly skilled in using MS Excel for data analysis 

• You have a strong background in M&E, having previously worked on running randomised trials in the area of development economics or similar. 

• You have excellent oral and written Marathi and English skills

• You are easy going and resilient which is needed sometimes to communicate with diverse authority figures in the government

• You are adept at getting information across in simple language to different stakeholders

• You are personable and a team player

• You are a self-starter who is highly organised and able to set up your own routine, without requiring lots of supervision and oversight

• You are highly conscientious 

• You are agile, able to work flexibly and enjoy working in a startup environment where the needs are likely to change week to week

• You relish challenges and like problem solving

• You are passionate about contributing to Suvita’s mission and impact; and driven to support our users to improve their families’ health and wellbeing

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Bonus qualities

These qualities are not a requirement for the role and the best candidate may have none of them, but they are nice to have:

• Experience with running public health programmes in collaboration with government bodies

• Skills in qualitative research methods

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Benefits

• Work in a mission-driven, impact-focused organisation with strong values 

• A friendly, passionate, curious team. 

• A high-leverage role in a young organisation. We are in early stages of charting our impact in Maharashtra, the right hire can play a large role in the trajectory of our impact. 

• Independence, autonomy and a flexible work schedule (though please note government asks and timelines may leave less room for flexibility). 

• 30 days’ paid holiday leave per year plus 12 days’ sick leave at full pay

• Reimbursement towards an annual health insurance policy

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Details

• Hours: full-time 

• Duration: fixed one-year term with plans to make long term subject to performance and organisation plans and budgets

• Location: based in Pune

• Pay: Rs 80,000-Rs 100,000 per month

• Reports to: Nithya Nagarathinam (you can read her role & profile here)

• Application timeline: 

  • Round 1 deadline (application form): 1 February 2021

  • Round 2 interview: week of 8th February 2021

  • Offer made: shortly following interviews

  • Start date: as soon as possible - we are aiming for 22nd February but can discuss any specific timeline needs with shortlisted candidates

 

We look forward to receiving your application.

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Application form