HANDS OF PEACE
Job Description:
Middle East Leadership Program Coordinator
Background About Hands of Peace
Hands of Peace (www.handsofpeace.org) is an interfaith organization developing peacebuilding and leadership skills in Israeli, Palestinian, and American teenagers through the power of dialogue and personal relationships. Hands of Peace (HOP) holds annual 19-day Summer Programs in Chicago and San Diego serving a total of 88 teenagers, as well as a year-round Alumni Club Program in the U.S. and the Middle East serving more than 500 graduates. Our goals include fostering global engagement, empowering empathetic leaders of the future, debunking stereotypes, and planting the seeds for grassroots change.
Hands of Peace has been very successful in its core mission. For twelve years we have taken in young Israelis and Palestinians who have had little or no contact with the other, mixed them with young Americans with little or no knowledge of the ME conflict, and through the power of dialogue and shared experience, changed their lives. This process has been guided by trained, experienced and skilled facilitators, primarily Israeli and Palestinian. Many of these facilitators have also worked with the HOP alumni in quarterly overnight seminars in the Middle East, which focus on dialogue, educational enrichment, and small service projects.
Until now, we have not had the resources or established intention to do ongoing leadership and skills training of alumni. This would have many benefits for our mission. These include the possibility of encouraging and helping our alumni create, initiate and sustain projects and initiatives that make a difference in their and other people’s lives. Now more than ever, our alumni are looking to take dialogue to the next level with tangible and visible projects in their home communities. HOP is committed to empowering them as agents of change.
Background About The Leadership Program
This past summer, our San Diego Program offered a pilot leadership training to our returning peer leaders (called “XLs”). The training was conducted by Gamaliel (gamaliel.org), the same program that once trained a young Barack Obama as a community organizer. This winter, Hands of Peace will invite all Israeli and Palestinian alumni to apply to a three-day leadership training retreat as part of our year-round Middle East Alumni Club. Fifteen Middle East alumni leaders will be carefully selected to attend the retreat, where they will receive coaching and mentoring from HOP staff and Gamaliel staff. These leaders in training will brainstorm project ideas, create action plans, and nurture their projects to completion over the course of the year.
Leadership Program Coordinator Job Responsibilities
The leadership program coordinator is a part-time position that involves an average of 8 hours per week of work. The Leadership Program Coordinator reports to the three HOP Regional Managers. Compensation for this position is $650 per month between January 2016 and June 2016.
Specific responsibilities include:
1. Overseeing the launching and implementation of the Hands of Peace leadership program, as well as overseeing the work of individual project teams.
2. Creating applications for the leadership program and selecting 15 HOP alumni to participate in the first six months of the leadership program.
3. Assisting with the hiring of five project coaches, who will each mentor one project team.
4. Participation in a three-day community organizing training led by Gamaliel in winter 2016 (project coaches and Regional Managers will also attend this training).
5. Planning curriculum for the alumni leadership retreat, in collaboration with Gamaliel trainers and Hands of Peace Regional Managers.
6. Managing the work of the five project coaches between February and June, and organizing regular one-on-one meetings to check in with each project coach about his/her team’s progress.
Qualifications:
- Experience in overseeing grassroots projects.
- Experience managing and leading a diverse team.
- Fluency in either Arabic or Hebrew is required. Preference will be given to those who speak both.
- Commitment to the idea of dialogue among Palestinians, Israelis, and Americans as a means toward cultivating peaceful relations among individuals.
- Excellent organizational and communication skills.
- Demonstrated responsibility and reliability in prior work settings, including consistent follow-up skills and email responsiveness.
- Ability to work well both collaboratively and independently.
- A keen instinct for managing conflicts and differences with a calm, professional, and courteous approach to ensure that all HOP constituents are treated with respect and understanding.
- Experience with Hands of Peace or similar dialogue organizations is strongly preferred.
- Training with Gamaliel or similar community organizing and leadership programs is strongly preferred.
The Middle East leadership program coordinator must be at least 21 years old (preference will be given to those 25 and older) and must reside in Israel or Palestine. For further information, please contact Executive Director Ashley Bates at abates@handsofpeace.org. To apply for this position, please send a cover letter and CV to abates@handsofpeace.org by December 12, 2015.
