National Consultant for Producing a publication on the contribution of UNDP to peace education through the experience of The Violence Free Schools in Lebanon

Since the start of the Syrian crisis in 2011, signs of conflict between the Lebanese themselves and between the Lebanese and Syrians present in Lebanon became more apparent. By 2014, the repercussion of Syrian refugees’ influx has expanded to most of Lebanese.

Social tensions were also reflected in the schools where a high number of Syrian displaced children were receiving their schooling. The number of students increased considerably inside the classrooms and the differences in social and academic backgrounds between Lebanese and Syrian students, in addition to other socio-cultural factors participated in the perpetuation of ever-growing tensions. As such, teachers, students, and administrations were overwhelmed and increasingly unable to shelter the schools from existing tensions in the communities.

The Violence Free Schools initiative is designed with the aim of providing external support to the schools that are managing school life in a time of crisis. It is part of the work of the UNDP Peace Building in Lebanon project (under the Crisis Prevention and Recovery Portfolio) working on involving municipalities, the media, civil society, and the education sector in peace building since 2007. The Peace Building in Lebanon project has an extensive experience in working on peace education in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education since 2007. In 2010, the project has collaborated with MEHE on the creation of a toolbox on Peace Building education that was designed to accompany the curriculum of civic education.  Since then, the project has collaborated with MEHE on training of teachers from different regions on integrating peace building concept in education.

In addition and since  2014, UNDP has been implementing the Violence Free Schools Initiative (VFS) in 56 intermediate public schools distributed as follows: in Bekaa (15), Beirut Southern Suburb (11), Mount Lebanon (15) and Tripoli and its neighboring areas (15).

Furthermore, in 2018, UNDP agreed with MEHE on a strategy to support the Ministry in its efforts to mainstream conflict prevention and address violence in schools. This also comes to complement MEHE’s efforts after having launched its “Student Protection in the School Environment” with UNICEF. Thus, in 2019 UNDP kicked off the process of building the capacities of MEHE’s teachers’ trainers from the “Direction d’Orientation Pedagogique et Scolaire” (DOPS) on how to mainstream conflict prevention into the school system, using its already existing tools and coaching DOPS trainers on implementing the methodology of the Violence Free Schools in high schools during the 2020-2021 scholar year. 

On the Violence Free Schools (VFS):

The overall objective of the VFS intervention is to integrate peace building into educational channels in Lebanese schools (for now but not limited to public schools). It aims to contribute in creating a violence free environment inside the Lebanese schools, especially the ones catering to Syrian refugees. The initiative involves teachers, students, school administrations as well as parents in every step of its process.

The methodology of the VFS is a multiple phase approach, starting with the training of the personnel, and followed by awareness and sensitization sessions for teachers and school management, students and parents on the context of peace education and violence prevention.

The following phase supports the formation of a school taskforce consisted from teachers and school management, students and parents. The taskforce works as an intermediate between the UNDP team and the school to insure the performance of the project, and meets regularly to work on a violence map and creates a code of conduct that tackles the responsibilities and rights for each party (teachers, school management, students and parents) to foster the violence free environments in schools; and identifies soft activities and implements it inside the school to insure sustainability of the project.

There are many pieces of evidence demonstrating the results achieved by the Peace Building project. There is a need to document and summarize the VFS experience for sharing and collective learning at the national level. Consequently, the objective of the consultancy is to review the existing evidence on how the VFS has contributed in supporting the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and the Lebanese public schools in addressing violence related issues in a participatory manner, allowing them to build their capacities in analyzing and addressing these issues by crisscrossing the findings of the most recent pedagogical research on the topic and a deep understanding of the local communities that these schools are located in. In addition, it will raise awareness on the VFS process and its major contribution to social stability at the local level in Lebanon.

The objective is expected to be achieved through the implementation of the following tasks:

1. Collect and document information on the VFS experience of UNDP Lebanon/ experience in this field;
2. Review existing evidence supporting project’s contribution to the peace building processes inside the schools in the targeted areas where the project is implemented; including 4 specific case studies as tangible examples/stories (from Mt Lebanon, Mount Lebanon, Bekaa and North Lebanon);
3. Produce a publication (in Arabic and English) for further sharing with stakeholders and practitioners involved in such processes.

Major stakeholders to be involved in the documentation process are: MEHE teams (DOPS personnel, school principals, DOPS, teachers), students and parents. Other Local actors / participants in dialogue sessions of the Project’s networks can be added.

Below are preliminary issues/ examples to be further explored and elaborated in the methodology and tools to be used:

• Overview on the VFS itself, the methodology and the process
• Brief Description of the project: when, where, partners (MEHE), donors, stakeholders, mechanisms and implementations, activities included;
• Success stories and lessons learnt;
• Challenges encountered;
• Recommendations.

Functional Competencies:

• Excellent reporting skills;
• Excellent editing skills;
• Very good analytical skills;
• Proven impartiality and cultural and human rights sensitivity;
• Knowledge of the context, peace education and its challenges in Lebanon;
• Fluent in written Arabic and English (Supporting documents such as previous articles published in both languages, concerning this subject are necessary to be submitted).

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Advocates and promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
• Knowledge of the UN preferable.

Academic Qualifications:
– Minimum a Master’s degree in education, social science, sociology, political science, or any other related field.

Years of Experience:
– A minimum of 7 years in documentation and report writing;

Technical Experience:

– Experience writing education related reports (minimum 2);
– Experience writing peacebuilding related reports (minimum 2);
– Experience working with UNDP or other UN agencies;

How to Apply:

The consultancy is open for all national consultants who meet the selection criteria and propose a competitive fee. Interested consultants are requested to apply only through this UNDP jobs portal.
Submissions through any other media will not be considered.
The application must include all of the following documents:
1. P11
2. Annex 3 (Offerors Letter) and

3. Methodology
4. Financial proposal
All files shall be submitted in one single document and uploaded as word or PDF file to the UNDP job site.
It has been observed that bidders don’t submit all requested documents and thus reducing their chance to be selected for a contract with UNDP. before you submit your offer please revise that the application is complete and comprises all documents.
Incomplete applications will not be considered.