Purpose of the role

The Global Media and Content Teams are excited to be hiring a Regional Stories and Media Lead in West Africa. The purpose of the role is to extend Sightsavers’ communications reach throughout our programme countries within West Africa. The post-holder, supporting global and national communications goals will have knowledge and expertise of regional media with the ability to pitch and place stories in targeted news outlets where they can help raise the profile of Sightsavers and support campaign and programmatic goals.

If world class relationship building skills, authentic story telling at a regional level in West Africa, a passion for news and a passion for telling stories sounds like an opportunity you have been waiting for then we are keen to hear from you.

About the role of Regional Stories and Media Lead WARO

This new opportunity sits across the global Media and Content teams with responsibilities to both. The right candidate will need to be fluent in both written and spoken English and French, be a passionate and responsible storyteller with excellent regional media knowledge within West Africa and strong communications strategy experience. They will be adept at building strong relationships across the region, remotely and in person. They will be able to manage their own time effectively, balancing competing requests while identifying joint content and media opportunities.

Accountabilities

Stories

• Collaborating with West African teams and UK communications and fundraising teams to source content and identify story opportunities across our three main thematic areas and priority programmes
• Liaising with stories producers, freelance photographers and videographers, predominantly focussing on written and audio stories collections and projects
• Providing training, advice and workshops within country offices relevant to the project stories

Media

• Influencing media engagement plans at a regional level to support communication strategies across West Africa linked to our three thematic areas
• Guiding and sharing knowledge to build media relationships within relevant media outlets across West Africa, supporting country teams.
• Acting as the main point of contact to avoid and resolve any media reputational crisis for Sightsavers in the region with availability to travel where necessary

Knowledge, skills and experience for Regional Stories and Media Lead WARO

• Excellent knowledge of national and international media and social media, ideally within international development
• Extensive experience sourcing and documenting emotive, contributor led stories; managing photography and video documentation projects; developing and delivering communications and content strategies within West Africa
• Experienced in building strong internal networks and maintaining relationships and communications across teams and countries
• Professional experience working in a policy or campaigns focussed media role
• Ability to sell international/development stories to the consumer, national and international media
• Advocate both internally and externally with stakeholders to showcase how media and PR contribute to achieving organisational objectives
• Awareness of ethical content; disability inclusion; safeguarding best practice
• global development issues; understanding of the power of individual stories
• Experience of training and skills transfer
• Excellent time management
• Team builder, line manager
• Fluent English and French, both written and spoken
• Current and ongoing right to work in one of the countries detailed

Desirable:

The Regional Stories and Media Lead is a highly varied and involved role and the above is not an exhaustive list of duties or required professional skills. Please see the Job Description for full details.

Interviews are likely to take place from 20 October onwards. This will be a two stage process with a written task followed by a virtual interview.