Refugee Field Assistant

Our primary purpose at UNHCR is to safeguard the rights and well-being of people who have been forced to flee. Together with partners and communities, we work to ensure that everybody has the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another country. We also strive to secure lasting solutions.

For over half a century, UNHCR has helped millions of people to restart their lives. They include refugees, returnees, stateless people, the internally displaced and asylum-seekers. Our protection, shelter, health and education has been crucial, healing broken pasts and building brighter futures.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was created in 1950, during the aftermath of the Second World War, to help millions of Europeans who had fled or lost their homes. We had three years to complete our work and then disband.

Today, over 70 years later, our organization is still hard at work, protecting and assisting refugees around the world.

Since 24 February 2022, Romania has received almost 7 million refugees fleeing directly from Ukraine or coming from Moldova. While many refugees are passing through Romania as a transit country on their way to Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, or other countries, over 170,000 have received temporary protection status in Romania. Romania’s status as both a transit and a destination country necessitates a response premised on three key directions: first, providing immediate, urgently needed protection and assistance to arrivals to Romania; second, ensuring information about and access to legal statuses to which arrivals to Romania may apply, alongside non-discriminatory access to rights and services provided by the government and humanitarian actors, and third, ensure accountability and effective two-way communication with the refugee population.

Within the delegated authority and under the supervision of the Field Officer, and within the Bucharest field team’s area of responsibility, the UNV Refugee Field Assistant will:

• Contribute to the strengthening of the field team’s engagement with national and local authorities, organizations, civil society, and refugee communities and identify opportunities for collaboration;
• Support with the planning and monitoring of the field team’s activities and ensure compliance with established policies, guidelines, procedures, and standards;
• Engage the refugee communities through two-way communication to provide feedback on needs and assistance;
• Contribute to advocacy efforts and activities, particularly in the areas of access to basic needs, inclusion and integration;
• Support the coordination of partners and activities at UNHCR’s integrated service hub RomExpo;
• Conduct needs assessments and support with data collection in the areas of basic needs;
• Support with the distribution of non-food items and post-distribution monitoring in close coordination with the relevant actors;
• Assist with field team coordination and communication with other UNHCR units and field offices for joint activities and information sharing;
• Support with the planning of meetings, events, and field missions with participation as needed;
• Undertake regular visits to various sites and participate in border-monitoring missions together with Field colleagues and report accordingly;
• Support with interpretation in the exchange of routine information, and contribute to related liaison activities;
• Contribute to capacity-building initiatives for authorities, partners, and other actors;
• Administrative tasks as required such as preparation of reports and meeting minutes;
• Contribute to age, gender, and diversity mainstreaming in all field activities;
• Perform any other related tasks as may be required or assigned by the supervisor.

Results/expected outputs:

• As an active UNHCR team member, efficient, timely, responsive, client-friendly, and high-quality support rendered to UNHCR and forcibly displaced persons in the accomplishment of her/his functions, including:
• Takes ownership of all responsibilities and honors commitments;
• Operates in compliance with organizational regulations and rules;
• Delivers outputs for which one has responsibility within prescribed time and quality standards;
• Age, Gender, and Diversity (AGD) perspective is systematically applied, integrated, and documented in all activities throughout the assignment
• A final statement of achievements towards volunteerism for peace and development during the assignment, such as reporting on the number of volunteers mobilized, activities participated in and capacities developed.