Category: Projects

“EU4LabourRights: Increasing Civic Voice and Action for Labour Rights and Social Protection in Armenia” project

Terms of Reference

Media Diversity Institute – Armenia is looking for a legal consultant to be responsible for providing legal advice and help within “EU4LabourRights: Increasing Civic Voice and Action for Labour Rights and Social Protection in Armenia ” project. Within the project, three innovative tools have been developed to support employees to address labour rights related issues and get legal assistance. Moreover, the tools are used to raise awareness about labour rights violations and provide information about the legal framework in Armenia and how the employees can address the issues by themselves through complete exercise of their rights. The responsibilities of a legal consultant include drafting documents, structuring solutions for issues, and providing answers to the questions received through the helpline and chatbot in a written form.

To be successful as a legal consultant, you should possess excellent analytical, research and writing skills, the ability to make good judgments, and be able to work well within a team.

Ultimately, a top-notch legal advisor should have strong communication skills, be able to manage a large workload with a tight deadline, and remain up-to-date with laws.

Legal Consultant Responsibilities

The general objective of the assignment for the Legal Consultant is to support MDIA in in the activities related to the labour rights with the following key responsibilities:

2.1. Follow up with the labour-rights related questions and complaints received via the anonymous helpline https://azdarar.mdi.am through provision of the legal assistance;

2.2. Create content related to labour-rights violations and legal framework for the project chatbot on the project Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/HavasarEqual/

2.3. Develop content and engage in production of short videos and infographics covering legal framework and main violations of the labour rights in Armenia for the project’s thematic blog.

2.4.Prepare quarterly reports on the submitted labour rights violation cases;

2.5.Assess the effectiveness of the online tools addressing the labour rights related issues and suggest necessary changes;

2.6. Carry out other tasks assigned by the project manager related to the labour rights and legal framework in Armenia․

Requirements and skills

• Academic background (at least BA degree) in law or human rights,
• 3-5 years of proven experience as a Legal Consultant in business environment and in the non-profits,
• Excellent knowledge and understanding of corporate law and procedures
• Full comprehension of the influences of the external environment of a corporation
• High degree of professional ethics and integrity
• Good judgement and ability to analyse situations and information
• Outstanding communication skills
• Good analytical skills,
• Flexibility and ability to response to challenges proactively in a timely manner;
• MA or BSc in Business Administration will be considered an advantage.

Background on the project

“EU4LabourRights: Increasing Civic Voice and Action for Labour Rights and Social Protection in Armenia” project is implemented by OxYGen Foundation, Socioscope NGO, “Asparez” Journalists’ Club NGO, Armenian Progressive Youth NGO, Media Diversity Institute – Armenia in cooperation with Protection of Rights without Borders NGO, and Eurasia Partnership Foundation. The Project will facilitate a multi-stakeholder policy Platform – CVA which will lead national consultations on the development and implementation of relevant public policies aimed at addressing the discrimination and violation of labour rights, with the involvement of grassroots organisations and activists’ nonformal groups.

On June 11 2021, an event took place in Yerevan officially launching three new EU-supported projects on enhancing labour rights protection in Armenia.

Three consortia, bringing 14 civil society organisations, employers’ and trade unions as well as media structures from Yerevan and marzes into close collaboration, are implementing the projects.

The new projects are the following:

“Labour Action: Collaborative Effort for Accountable and Inclusive Employment’’ project is implemented by Union of Employers of ICT, Armavir Development Center and Kiraki Development Foundation. The Project aims at enhancing capacity of public administration and civil society organisations to strengthen and expand protection of labor rights and building strategic institutional capacity within the Government towards social protection and labor reforms.

“Decent work now!” project is implemented by Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly – Vanadzor, Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center, Advanced Public Research Group, Factor Information Center NGO in cooperation with Education and Solidarity Union.  The Project aims to enhance the individual, collective, and state mechanisms of labour and social rights protection and their application in Armenia through empowerment of employees and labour unions and advocacy for legislative framework reform.

“EU4LabourRights: Increasing Civic Voice and Action for Labour Rights and Social Protection in Armenia” project is implemented by OxYGen Foundation, Socioscope NGO, “Asparez” Journalists’ Club NGO, Armenian Progressive Youth NGO, Media Diversity Institute – Armenia in cooperation with Protection of Rights without Borders NGO, and Eurasia Partnership Foundation. The Project will facilitate a multi-stakeholder policy Platform – CVA which will lead national consultations on the development and implementation of relevant public policies aimed at addressing the discrimination and violation of labour rights, with the involvement of grassroots organisations and activists’ nonformal groups.

The projects initiated activities at the beginning of 2021 and aim to improve labour and social rights protection in Armenia through innovative, IT solutions in labour rights control, public awareness raising on labour rights especially among youth, women, and people with disabilities. Also, they intend to promote a more continuous participatory dialogue among key stakeholders..

Ruben Sargsyan, MLSA Deputy Minister, Hakob Avagyan, Head of the Healthcare and Labour Inspectorate, and Gonzalo Serrano De La Rosa, Head of the Co-operation Section, European Union Delegation to Armenia participated in the event.

“I am impressed when looking to the agenda of the event and seeing so many logos. I think this is a great added value also from the EU side that we can provide, bringing together many partners, different specialisations, different views, opinions, so we are getting together to ensure important, positive tangible change and not only in the labour rights” – Mr. Serrano said.

In his speech, Mr. Sargsyan signified the EU support to protection of labour rights and the improvement of the socio-economic situation in Armenia. He put a special highlight to application of IT system in the Healthcare and Labor Inspectorate for the protection of labour rights. He also emphasized the importance of awareness raising campaigns especially among vulnerable groups of society.

Mr. Avagyan mentioned that the Health Care and Labour Inspectorate have already started cooperation with the project partners, highlighting especially the importance of the upgrading of the inspectorate body, particularly, the digitalization of the labor rights protection mechanism through an online platform.

During the meeting, a MOU between the Healthcare and Labour Inspectorate and the Project Partners thus announcing and laying a ground for continuous cooperation on the labour rights protection in Armenia.

Within the framework of the “Rapid Response Fund Initiative“ program, the Public Journalism Club is announcing about an opportunity to provide financial assistance to media workers injured during the war.

Due to the limited financial resources, the media workers who suffered during the second Nagorno Karabakh  war and obtained health problems will be selected.

If you have covered the 44-day war and your health has been damaged, please fill out this form. Deadline for applications is June 30, 2021.

The main goals of the “Rapid Response Fund Initiative” program supported by EED (European Endowment for Democracy) are to provide fast and flexible support to journalists and media workers, to provide them with medical and psychological assistance, to develop professional skills in international humanitarian law, first aid, digital and personal data security, and to raise awareness of psychological protection among journalists and the public.

The program is implemented by the Public Journalism Club NGO. Within the framework of the project, a coordinating consortium was formed, which includes the Media Initiative Center, the Yerevan Press Club, the Freedom of Information Center, the Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression, and the Comprehensive Information Institute. The consortium will develop the long-term vision, mission, and strategy of the initiative.

Media Diversity Institute – Armenia has joined forces with partners like Freedom of Information Center, Journalists for the Future, Grandlex and Digital Rights to push for Armenia’s Internet Freedom Policy Agenda.

The specific goals of the initiative are:

a) Adoption of a long-term policy agenda that will guide the coalition of civil society organizations and other interested groups in advocating free and non-discriminatory access to the Internet.
b) Drafting specific amendments to the Law on Electronic Communication based on the long- term policy agenda and launching an advocacy campaign for their adoption.
c) If required launching strategic litigation aimed at changing controversial decisions of regulatory and/or executive authorities.

The draft concept of the policy agenda is here.

 

As part of its CyberHUB-AM project MDI Armenia organized a digital security training for journalism students at the Journalism Faculty of Yerevan State University.

The Digital Security specialists of CyberHUB-AM Samvel Martirosyan, Vartan Arzumanian and Artur Papyan discussed IT security threats, digital security tools with future journalists, responded to the questions.

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As part of its CyberHUB-AM project the MDI Armenia held a free digital security training for journalists.

The founders of CyberHUB-AM team Samvel Martirosyan and Artur Papyan discussed IT security threats, digital security tools with journalists, helped them reconfigure their messengers, social media and email accounts for enhanced security, responded to the questions.

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As part of the CyberHUB-AM project Media Diversity Institute – Armenia and the OxYGen Foundation jointly co-organized a digital security training for a range of Armenian NGOs, working on gender and women’s issues.

The training covered issues around risk identification and risk management, protecting organizational websites and social media accounts from possible attacks, as well as internal communication and sensitive data.

Media Diversity Institute – Armenia has established an IT helpdesk, which  will provide assistance to human rights defenders, activists, journalists and the independent media.

The support team involves Armenian digital security specialists: Samvel Martirosyan, Vartan Arzumanyan, Antranig Vartanian, Artur Papyan.

We provide assistance and advice on digital security incidents and we guarantee the anonymity of those applying for help.

We also collect anonomised data on digital security incidents and attacks against the Armenian civil society and analyse such incidents, with the objective of developing more efficient ways to protect from such incidents as well as for sharing it with the international IT security community.