Lwala Community Alliance

Application Deadline: May 15th, 2023

Organization Background

Lwala Community Alliance (Lwala) is a community-led innovator proving that when communities lead, change is drastic and lasting. Lwala village, a small community in rural western Kenya, founded the organization as a response to extreme health challenges. The region experiences some of the highest HIV, maternal mortality, and infant mortality rates in East Africa. As such, community members built their area’s first health center.

From these humble beginnings, we are now the largest provider of health services for a population of over 90,000. The work extends far beyond the original hospital as we support communities in their homes, schools, and farms to advance their own comprehensive well-being. We address the complex causes of poor health through a multi-dimensional strategy, which engages community members in driving their own change.

Our community-led health model centers on 4 pillars:

1. Community Committees – We organize community committees to launch holistic health initiatives. They advance rights and hold health systems accountable.
2. Health Centers – We provide onsite quality improvement support and technical trainings to government health facilities. Exemplified by Lwala Community Hospital, these facilities advance dignified, patient-centered care.
3. Community Health Workers (CHWs) - We recruit, pay, supervise, and digitally empower transformed traditional midwives as part of professionalized CHW cadres to extend high-quality care to every home. 
4. Data - Real-time mobile data capture and robust population-level surveying enables our team and government policymakers to make evidence-based decisions. 

We believe that driving community participation is the most effective way to improve health outcomes and build durable health systems. We connect community innovation with university-backed research to tackle the multidimensional causes of poor health. This bottom-up change promises solutions that are custom-built for the systems they are meant to reform.

Position Description

The Research and Learning Fellow is overseen by the Research and Learning  Director and works closely with the Research and Learning Coordinator. The research and learning fellow will support the research and learning team  to carry out research and learning on Lwala’s successes in the region.

Key Responsibilities

• Assist in formation, analysis, visualization and quality assurance of Lwala’s Key Performance Indicators, metrics, and evaluation/research results (50%)

• • Support development and measurement of key performance indicators for internal and external audiences.
  • Provide analysis to offer trends analysis in support of program learning and results.
  • Expand visualization tools and other strategies to actively understand KPIs and encourage programmatic use of M&E data.

• • Support data quality checks and data trend reviews regularly.
  • Work with the business development and program teams to generate progress updates, both on specific indicators and on overall program progress.

• Participate in data collection, program evaluations and research at Lwala (30%).

• • Help develop program evaluation tools and structures for new and existing programs, including building survey tools and data collection processes, and providing feedback to organization and program leadership on results to guide decision-making. 
  • Become familiar with Commcare (ODK-based platform) and Sales Force to support community-health digital system data flow, extraction, and case management processes for learning.
  • Provide support to the M&E team on integration of evaluation results with other ongoing monitoring, data analysis and data visualization, always ensuring that evaluations are integrated with existing data management systems at Lwala, particularly Salesforce.
  • Support maintenance of Lwala research and data quality SOPs.

• Undertake knowledge management tasks for Lwala, with a particular focus on M&E and research systems, information, and data (20%).

• • Organize, refine, update or create products that document M&E processes, indicators and systems. 
  • Support development of communications materials that summarize key M&E information to support program learning and knowledge.
  • During the fellowship period, prepare and facilitate two learning sessions for the  research and learning staff members on a skill, application or program that the fellow is good at. 
  • Other responsibilities as mutually agreed upon with supervisor.

Personal attributes required for the Role

• Ability to work in a fast-paced, changing environment.

• Demonstrated team player.

• Confident self-starter who has demonstrated drive.

• Excellent organization skills, ability to independently prioritize multiple tasks and work to deadlines.

• Ability to learn quickly and take initiative.

• Patience and resilience.

• Self-motivation and resourcefulness.

Academic and work experience requirements for the Role

• A degree or relevant experience in international development, public health, public administration, statistics or related field.

• A background in research, data analysis, and/or support of M&E systems and design.

• Strong writing abilities, both creative and analytical, preferably with strong editing skills.

• Experience with electronic data collection systems/languages (e.g., Commcare, ODK, REDcap, SurveyCTO) – or keen interest to learn. 

• A proven ability to work with teams to build capacity in technical areas.

• Successful experience working with people from different cultural backgrounds.

• Interest in Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) and Public/Community Health.

To Apply

Please send the following to recruitment@lwalacommunityalliance.org with the subject line “Research and Learning Fellow”. 

• Current CV/resume. 
• Letter of Interest detailing related skills and experience. 
• 3 professional references with name, title, email, phone contact, and relationship to the applicant.