Bilingual (French/English) Humanitarian Research Intern
Team: Airbel Impact Lab is the Research and Innovation team at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a global humanitarian agency responding to the needs of communities affected by crisis. With over 70 million people displaced, the demand for aid is unprecedented. To address the evolving and growing nature of this crisis requires not just more aid, but new thinking. There is a lack of proven, cost-effective, scalable services for people affected by crisis. In some cases, there is a lack of evidence on what works. In others, evidence shows existing solutions are effective, but we need to find new ways of delivering them at scale in fragile states. That’s why the IRC created the Airbel Impact Lab. Our goal is to find and advance breakthrough solutions — with people and ethics at the center of all we do.
Role: The Airbel Impact Lab has multiple behavioral insights and design research projects underway in French-speaking countries in West Africa. The Bilingual Design Fellow will work with the Associate Director for Health Innovation and the Behavioral Insights Practice Lead at Airbel Impact Lab, along with the IRC country program staff in countries like Mali, Chad and Niger to help the team coordinate qualitative research with clients, support analysis (in French and English) and use those insights to develop and test tools for use by low-literacy clients across several projects. These projects cover a range of humanitarian outcomes, from reducing child malnutrition, womens’ sexual and reproductive health, as well as improving children’s social and emotional education.
This fellow will support the French-English collaboration of IRC colleagues across our different innovation practices (such as strategy, human-centered-design or behavioral science) and across different country programs around the world, gaining hands-on experience of humanitarian innovation. Current behavioral science projects not only span a breadth of different humanitarian priority areas, but more than a dozen countries across three different continents.
Potential tasks and deliverables:
Support live translation during design workshops in French and English with IRC staff and design consultants.
Translate research plans or analysis reports between French and English
Liaise with IRC country program staff to support coordination and implementation of qualitative design research/testing and prototyping.
Support the analysis of design research data, to identify barriers and drivers of desired behavior change and use this analysis to provide recommendations for continued design research and prototyping.
Conduct literature review to support development of ideas and solutions to address identified barriers.
Based on qualitative research findings, support the development and creation of tools or solution ideas to be tested with these populations.
Translate and contribute to reports with analysis and recommendations for continued research, design and testing.
Potential travel involved: No travel is being planned due to Covid-19
Required skills include:
Working fluency in both spoken and written French and English is essential. Live translation from English-to-French and French-to-English will be part of any interview for this role.
Qualitative research / formative research experience in low-resource settings OR Familiarity or experience with human centred design, design thinking, or prototyping skills
Undergraduate degree in a related field
Desired skills include:
Experience working in humanitarian contexts, low-resource settings or with underserved populations in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East or Latin America
An interest or experience in any of the following:
behavioural science,
humanitarian or social impact innovation,
field-testing or prototyping,
design thinking or human centred design approaches,
journalism,
social work
anthropology, or
sociology
Experience leading projects or with project management would be a plus
Skills facilitating virtual communications and workshops in French and English
Experience live translating between English and French
Compensation
1000 USD per month stipend
Contact information
Any interested candidates should send their CVs to Britt Titus and Carla Lopez by 31 September at
britt.titus@rescue.org and carla.lopez@rescue.org