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Alliance Guinea Seeking Interns
Internship – Alliance Guinea
Location: Anywhere with Internet, with Possible Travel to Guinea (depending on funding) from the United States or Europe.
Time period: Summer 2012 full-time, with possibility to continue as a member of the Steering Committee beyond the summer.
Compensation: All Alliance Guinea members are currently unpaid volunteers.
About Alliance Guinea:
Alliance Guinea (www.allianceguinea.org) was founded in late 2009 in the aftermath of the September 28 massacre with the mission of promoting democracy, human rights, and unity in Guinea. Our approach is a worldwide, nonpartisan forum for friends of Guinea of all nationalities and ethnicities to share information and promote powerful citizen action across networks. Co-founded together by Guineans and non-Guinean friends in Guinea and around the world, we feel Alliance is unique in our combination of political and ethnic neutrality, Guinean-driven credibility, connections between the diaspora and home-country, and access to decision-makers in the international community.
In the past two and a half years, we have become best known in Guinea for our SMS-based citizen observation of the 2010 presidential elections and their aftermath and in the US and France in particular for our facilitation of dialogue among the Guinean diaspora communities (see here for instance) and with American government actors and other, non-governmental groups. Our principal areas of action continue to be in awareness-raising and dialogue around issues of democracy and human rights in Guinea, but also increasingly in facilitating citizen-driven approaches to promoting rights and better on-going governance.
In the coming year, with anticipated financial and material support, we are focusing on the following main activities:
1. Guinée Vote Témoin (GVT): citizen monitoring of the legislative elections before, during and after election day – once the elections are finally scheduled. The effort will be an enhanced deployment of the Ushahidi/crowdsourcing system we used during the presidential elections, including with increased feedback loops for rural communities and better data analysis.
2. Piloting a cutting-edge initiative employing crowdsourcing technology for citizen monitoring of environmental governance in Guinea
3. Establishing a member-run “Centre de Communication et Mobilisation Civique”
Concept notes for these initiatives are available upon request for further details. Throughout the year we will also continue to represent member interests to the US government and other international community actors and keep up our ongoing blogging and other outlets for information sharing, analysis and statements in both English and French.
Internship Description:
As a full-time intern, the candidate would have the opportunity to take a lead role on the development of several Alliance Guinea initiatives. In particular, she/he would be involved in the following:
- Tracking and Blogging about the Upcoming Legislative Elections and other issues of relevance to Guinea and Alliance’s mission
- Putting in place the framework for a Citizen Elections Monitoring Platform for Legislative Elections
- Helping to implement a crowdsourced platform for good governance
- Establishing a Citizen Communications Center in Conakry, including an advocacy and outreach strategy to key stakeholders (notably to Guinean diaspora)
- Developing new revenue streams and grants with the Alliance Guinea Board and Steering Committee
It is extremely important that the candidate have a strong interest in Guinea, civil society and new media. We highly encourage candidates to read our entire website to get a sense of the organization’s vision. Additional or special projects may be proposed depending on the candidate’s interests and competencies.
Necessary Competencies:
- Fluency/Professional level reading, writing and conversation in French and English, including writing for general public/blog
- Strong interest in citizen-led advocacy, democracy and governance, and social change communication
Highly Desired Competencies:
Candidates with one or more of the following competencies will be seriously considered:
- Prior experience in Guinea or another Francophone West African Country
- Prior experience with social media (twitter, Facebook, WordPress)
- Grantwriting experience
- Technical exertise in creation of online and SMS based communication platforms
- Business planning
- Advocacy and Social Change Communication/C4D background
Deadline and Application Material:
Candidates are invited to forward a recent CV to Cody Donahue, cody@allianceguinea.org