Call for Expression of Interest

 
Call for Expression of Interest

For the implementation of Coaching for Employment under the Vocational Training and Employment Support Services (VTESS) project

The Vocational Training and Employment Support Services (VTESS) project enters its 2nd project phase from 2024 to 2027 and aims at vocational training and labour market insertion of early school leavers with primary and/ or lower secondary education, who are disadvantaged and 15-35 years of age. The goal is to bring these early school leavers back into (self) employment or back into the education system through a coaching process. For a youth joining this program, the coaching process lasts 9 months.

For the VTESS project, Swisscontact is looking for partners interested to join activities by assigning suitable staff to be trained and become “Coaches for Employment”. Partners should be based in one of the following locations: Vientiane Capital, Oudomxay, Xayaboury, Xiengkhuang, Khammuane or Saravane.

Having the right partner organisations and coaches on board is the key success factor of the coaching process. Totally there will be 15 new coaches in the project in all 6 provinces combined in 2024. Each of these coaches will work with a group of up to 10 youths. The project will ensure that a balanced group (males, females, and ethnicity) of coaches is available in order to provide coaching to different needs of the youths e.g. regarding ethnicity (language) and sex (male/female). The training of the coaches will happen in 8 stages; each stage lasts about 5 days. After each training stage the coaches will apply what they have learned, meaning they will directly work with the youths.

Interested organisations will assign suitable staff to become coaches to the project. The organisation will be responsible for logistics, supervision of their coaches and reporting to the project, although most reporting work will be done by the coaches themselves.

Call for Expression of Interest

For the implementation of Coaching for Employment under the Vocational Training and Employment Support Services (VTESS) project

Contract duration: 14 months (February 2024 to March 2025) with possibility for extension for an additional 2 years.

Project Implementation in: Vientiane Capital, Oudomxay, Xiengkhouang, Xayaboury, Khammouane and Salavan. Interested organisations must be in the respective locations.

Deadline for applications: 24 November 2023
Application process
Eligible organisation for this EoI are private and public organisations, Non-Profit Associations (NPAs) and INGOs.

Eligibility of organisations and staff for coaches
Criteria for organisations to apply:
i)  Knowledge and work experience with young vulnerable groups;

ii)  Knowledge and work experience with implementation of projects/programs in vocational training, employment support, job orientation and job placement;

iii)  Premises (meeting rooms) that allow group work for a group of up to 20 people;

iv)  Suitable staff that can be assigned as future coaches who will undergo the Training of Coaches and provide coaching to the youths. The organisation should be able to delegate the assigned staff to work as a coach for about 50% of their time (2.5 days/week).
  Criteria for staff to become Coaches:
i)  Are in the age group of 25 to 45 years;

ii) Have several years of experience working with young, disadvantaged people (e.g. teaching, youth work, community work, social work) or volunteer work (sports trainers, educational programs);

iii) Have experience liaising with the private sector;

iv) Are exercising a technical level job

v)  Are able to commit time for the coaching of youths (2.5 days week = 50% of time);

vi) Are able to commit time to attend the training of coaches (totally 8 x 5 days = 40 days);

vii) Speak Lao and preferably also a language relevant to the ethnic minority in the province.
Submission of applications
There are two application forms attached, one for the potential partner organizations (Annex 1) and one for the potential coaches (Annex 2).

i)  The organisation will fill the form for potential organization (Click HERE for link to Annex 1);

ii)  The organisation will hand the form for potential coaches (Click HERE for link to Annex 2) to any staff who fulfils the criteria and wants to become a coach – provided the organisation can delegate the person to work for the project 50% of the time (2.5 days/week);

iii)  Each potential staff who wants to become a coach completes one form.
Evaluation process and contracting

# Tasks Due date

1. Express of Interest out by date: November 6, 2023
2. Applicants may submit questions for clarification to the VTESS project by email to recruitment.laos@swisscontact.org until date: November 10, 2023ມ (Emails will be confirmed. If no confirmation is received re-mail and contact telephone +856 21 454 148. Questions will not be answered by phone.)
3. The VTESS project will respond to questions to all applicants by mail by date: November 17, 2023
4. All final application forms (Annex 1 and Annex 2) must be sent to the VTESS project by email to recruitment.laos@swisscontact.org (Emails will be confirmed) November 24, 2023
5. The VTESS project will evaluate and inform the applicants: November 30, 2023

Training of Coaches and coaching to youth
In 2024, the first Training for Coaches will take place in February 2024.

The first coaching sessions conducted by the coaches with a group of youth will start in June 2024 and the coaching process will end in February 2025.