Consultancy - Delivery Of Menstrual Hygiene Awareness Sessions

Background and Rational: Oxfam has secured funding from DFID to implement a Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) intervention in different areas in North of Bekaa. As a core component of the hygiene promotion activities, the team is planning to carry out public health sessions which touch on different health-related and environmental-focused themes. To ensure that the sessions are well contextualised and meet the priority needs of the refugees, the team has carried out different forms of needs assessments. The results of the assessments have outlined menstrual hygiene as a priority need for women groups. In specific, the results of the KAP study, together with the generated information from FGDs have showed that the awareness level of the women on an array of issues related to menstruation hygiene is limited. For example, women were not aware about the biological changes that are related to menstruation in general and menstrual pain in particular.   This ToR is intended to outline the terms and conditions to hire a consultant or a consultancy group that specialises in the delivery of awareness sessions specific to reproductive health in general, and menstruation in particular. The awareness sessions will serve as the primary step in a series of interventions to increase the knowledge and improve the behaviour of women on menstrual hygiene.   Process: The consultant is expected to deliver a total 18 awareness sessions on reproductive health, with particular focus of menstrual hygiene to Syrian refugee women living in different Informal Settlements (IS) located in North of Bekaa. The women serve as Community Hygiene Volunteers (CHVs) and work jointly with Oxfam’s team to organise events, disseminate key health messages to the refugee community in the IS. As part of peer education, the CHVs will attend the session and later deliver the trainings to other women who live in their respective ISs. The awareness sessions will be delivered on two stages:   Stage 1: General information on the female reproductive system and menstruation cycle. This stage will focus on the below subthemes:  -  Brief introduction of the female reproductive system (organs and their functions)  -   Brief introduction on menstruation (cycle, reasons, changes, etc...)  -   Introduction of the medical and social misconceptions that are related to menstruation   Stage 2: General information related to health problem specific to menstruation hygiene. This stage will focus on the below subthemes:  -     Description of the health problems that are related to menstruation hygiene  -     Description of the most acceptable menstrual hygiene practices.      The awareness sessions ought to be:   Presented in Arabic. Explained using simple terminologies (avoid using medical terms) Facilitated through the use of participatory tools (such as Visual aids)   The key messages ought to be contextualised to the current context of the Syrian refugees living in Lebanon. As such, consultants need to meet with the team and conduct few visits to the field with Oxfam’s team to develop a better understanding of the context and identify the main issues relevant to the topic of interest. As such, the consultant needs to carry out the following:   Meet with Oxfam staff to discuss the different messages. Delivery of all output as per the below time frame (Refer to the Below table for specific information on the time frame)   Field visit – few days from signing the contract Delivery of the sessions will start as of the 1st week of June Monitoring the sessions- during the delivery Evaluation meeting with Oxfam staff- After the sessions       May 2015 June 2015 Activities Week 4 (25th – 29th) Week 1 (1st- 5th) Week 2 (8th-12th) Week 3 (15th- 19st) Week 4 (22nd-26th) Week 5 (29th & 30th) Signing the contract             Carrying out the preparatory meeting and field visit             Delivering of the sessions by the consultant   4 session 4 session 4 session 4 session 2 session Monitoring the events by Oxfam staff             Evaluating of the event by Oxfam staff             Payments Specific % of the payment         Specific % of the payment   .   Deliverables: The consultant/ consultancy group will carry out a total of 18 sessions over the course of a month (June). The consultant is merely responsible to delivering the sessions and will not have any role in recruiting the participants. The frequency of delivery of sessions will be as such: 2 sessions per day; for 2 days every week. The duration of the sessions will be between 45 and 60 minutes each. The sessions will be carried out between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm (the specific timings will be later discussed with the team) The total number of participants will be 10 to 12 women per session.