ORGANISATIONAL BACKGROUND

Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) is an international Catholic organisation, whose mission is to accompany, serve and advocate for the rights of refugees and forcibly displaced people.

JRS had served over 677,804 people worldwide. JRS Australia is one of the organisation’s 56 country offices across the globe.       

In Australia, JRS Australia serves more than 3,000 refugees, people seeking asylum, and migrants in vulnerable situations with specialist casework, emergency relief, food bank services, legal support, English language classes, community development programs, and a dedicated specialist service for survivors of domestic and family violence.

JRS Australia’s advocacy consists of normative contributions to the field of forced migration, high level lobbying with leaders, political parties, and policy makers, engagement at multilateral and civil society forums, and grassroots community engagements, at the international, regional, national, and local level.

PROJECT INFORMATION & KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

JRS working with stakeholders to develop and support Catholics for Refugees groups in Australia. Through these groups, Catholics from all walks of life will come together in electorates across Sydney to catalyse effective, long term change in the refugee policy in Australia. Catholics for Refugees is a collective response from the community who have shared that they want to put their passion into action but did not necessarily know where or how to start. These groups will be led by leaders in the community and supported by paid staff.       

The Digital and Media Volunteer role will be an important support to this initiative. This is a 8 hour a week (flexible) role over a minimum of three months.

The core tasks asked of the volunteer are as follows:

• Use squarespace/WIX to design and maintain a Catholics for Refugees website 
• Help to create content for the website
• Help to put together a digital resource pack on refugee content, actions, advocacy and support for groups across Sydney. This will include writing/comms skills
• Assist in putting together and planning campaign actions
• Assist the Community Organiser with supplementary tasks as required

SELECTION CRITERIA

• Comfortable working on websites and strong design skills (comfortable using Canva or graphic design programs) 
• Experience and/or interest working in the area of refugees, people seeking asylum and/or human rights
• Strong verbal and written communications skills
• Ability to work independently and multi-task
• Strong computer and technological skills

GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

Induction training day:

• This will cover the history, mission, and values of JRS, the global work of JRS and the global context of forcibly displaced people, the Arrupe Project and its services, case studies, boundaries, and the Volunteer Manual.
• Smaller training groups may be offered for specific roles. Volunteers are required to do ongoing training when offered throughout the year.
• The Digital and Media Volunteer is required to complete a short introductory meeting with the community organiser.

Identification and checks:

• Before the training day, volunteers must complete a volunteer application form and have a short interview to which they will bring 100pts of ID for police checks.
• Volunteers need to apply for their own working with children checks.
• Once a volunteer has completed training, they are required to sign the JRS Code of Conduct.

A position description is attached.