MEKONNEN YIBRAH

P.O.Box: 81003
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Cell-phone: +251-911-832-547 Email: [email protected]
+251-910-449-565 [email protected]
Jan 27, 2022

ACTED
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Re: Projects Development Officer (PDO/ETH-UGA)

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing this application letter in response to the vacancy announcement at ACTED for the post
of ‘Projects Development Officer announced on 12-Jan-2022 at www.etcareers.com at ACTED for
the Ethiopian mission. I am interested to carry out any of the roles & responsibilities to be conducted
by the job holder and I would be grateful if the organization could offer me the job because my
qualifications and experience is a good fit for the position.

Qualifications & Experiences: My name is Mekonnen Yibrah and I have a BA degree in English
as a Foreign Language and an MA in TEFL (Master of Arts in Teaching of English as a Foreign
Language) both from Haramaya University. Currently, I am working as a full-time Communication
Officer for the Union of Ethiopian Women and Children Associations (UEWCA) and Project
Officer for the ‘Strengthened Women Networks Greater Impact (STITCH) project coordinated by
Oxfam and FEMNET secretariat since August 2021 to date. As a communication officer, I am
responsible for gathering stories and documenting field reports, writing success stories and training
proceedings, organizing events, writing newsletters for campaigning, advocacy, and policy
influencing o advocate on women’s unspoken pains on unpaid care and domestic work as well as
the contribution of women and women focused CSOs in peacebuilding and conflict resolution which
could be a potential asset for the national dialogue in Ethiopia. My experience working with New
Media Advocacy Program (NMAP) is the best fit for this position. This advocacy program is a one-
year project and activates on bringing sustainable narrative change in areas where legal reforms are
needed in Ethiopia. On the meantime, I am taking another one-year International Training Program
(ITP 307) on Gender Statistics funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation
Agency (SIDA) in subjects that are strategically important to the social and economic development
of Ethiopia.

Disseminating regular communications with my program staff and serving as a public relation with
local and international media as well as managing publications, capturing photos and videos from
the field, meetings and field training. Previously, I was working as a Senior Communications and Editor
at Izu and Taju Modern Insurance Consultants residing in Addis Ababa. In similar positions, I worked at
Haramaya University Demographic Surveillance and Health Research Center as communications
officer and project coordinator’s Admin Assistant (Nov 2013 to Nov. 2014).

Address: Cell phone: +251 911 83 25 47 E-mail: [email protected]

In addition to the above experiences, I was working for the British Council Peacekeeping English
Project (PEP) in collaboration with the Ethiopian Ministry of National Defense (2011-2019) as a field
project coordinator based in Harar, and coach trainer in East Command Training Center to adult
military personnel; community development officer, lecturer and researcher positions at Dire
Dawa University (2014 to 2019). Totally, I have worked for 16 years in the aforementioned positions.

Training: I have taken more than 15 professional training courses which have a direct relationship
with communications, project management and development aspects particularly, partnership and
networking, gender equality, project development, resource mobilization, unpaid care and domestic
work, human rights, men to men strategy, graphic design, project coordination, financial
management, English language and managing self-access centers, and clarity English language
software workshops.
Skills Gained: I have gained a certain level of confidence in development programs: managing
grants, managing projects’ financial and technical aspects to cascade downstream monitoring and
evaluation to sub-grantees, periodic reports for mixed audience groups including clients, partners,
senior managers, and corporate stakeholders, technical report writing, developing success stories,
updating website. My skills and knowledge also extend to managing social media spaces,
disseminating research outputs, writing brochures, flyers, posters, colanders, banners, booklets,
newsletters, proceedings, drafting and editing factsheets, video editing, graphic designing, etc. and
started to notice remarkable changes in my career life. Generally, my expertise in the use of media
and communication in advocacy and policy programs, excellent communication skills to variety of
audiences, strong interpersonal skills and ability to work in a wide variety of cultural contexts as well
as ability to prioritize work issues to meet deadlines with minimal supervision, and adjust to manage
the deliverables. These skills and changes really motivated me to work harder for ACTED as an
‘Projects Development Officer.

With my communication, campaigning, advocacy and influencing, development, and project

management skills and experiences, I am quite confident that I would fulfill the expectations of
ACTED and contribute to the improvement of the organization’s working platforms in promoting its
target objectives in striving to the communication needs of the organization.

Finally, I have gathered information on the activities undertaken by ACTED and have come to
strongly believe in the cause, so I hereby submitted my application to join your esteemed organization
with at most sincerity.

Attached to my cover letter is a copy of my CV.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely yours
Mekonnen Yibrah

Address: Cell phone: +251 911 83 25 47 E-mail: [email protected]