Title of the Tender: Hiring Consultant to develop training package for caregivers in ECD centers in English & Kinyarwanda.

Tender Reference Number: CRS-Rwanda 0008- FY25-TN/2025

Procurement Method: Open Tender

Date of Issue: January 27^th, 2025

Date of Submission: February 10^th, 2025

TENDER NOTICE

CRS-Rwanda 008- FY25-TN/2025

Hiring Consultant to develop training package for caregivers in ECD centers in English & Kinyarwanda.

Scope of Work

CONSULTANCY TO DEVELOP TRAINING PACKAGE FOR CAREGIVERS IN ECD CENTERS IN ENGLISH & KINYARWANDA

Cooperative Agreement: AID – 720-696-21-CA-00004

GIKURIRO KURI BOSE BACKGROUND

As part of the universal mission of the Catholic Church, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) works with local, national and international Catholic institutions and structures, as well as other organizations, to assist people based on need, not creed, race or nationality. The primary goal of CRS/Rwanda programming is to ensure that vulnerable households in Rwanda achieve full, integral human development. 

The USAID Gikuriro Kuri Bose is a 5-year (Oct. 2021- Sept. 2026) USAID-funded program on Strengthening coordination and capacity as well as Inclusive Nutrition and Early Childhood Development service delivery. INECD is leveraging the consortium expertise in nutrition, early childhood development (ECD), rehabilitation and assistive technology (Rehab & AT), disability inclusion, and capacity strengthening to support the Government of Rwanda (GoR) in helping every Rwandan child realize their full potential in line with GoR ECD policies, the mandates of the National Child Development Agency (NCDA), and USAID’s Country Development Cooperation Strategy.

The Inclusive Nutrition and Early Childhood Development (INECD) Activity is implemented through a consortium of three international agencies and two national agencies: Catholic Relief Services - USCCB (CRS) who is the prime, Humanity and Inclusion (HI), Umuhuza, Three Stones International (TSI) Rwanda and the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE). INECD works through decentralized Government of Rwanda (GoR) systems and structures and four local civil society organizations (LCSOs): Caritas Rwanda, DUHAMIC-ADRI, Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) and the African Evangelist Enterprise (AEE) coordinate service delivery at decentralized levels covering ten target districts.

Operating in 10 districts: Burera, Kayonza, Kicukiro, Ngoma, Nyabihu, Nyamasheke, Nyanza, Nyarugenge, Rulindo, and Rwamagana, the program is working with 4,562 villages and around 45,000 frontline providers and has reached more than half a million women of reproductive age and almost 481,855 children under 5 (CU5) and their families. The team is working with GoR and civil society organizations (CSOs) to tackle bottlenecks and fulfill their NCDA Strategic Plan mandates. The consortium is strengthening nurturing care services from national-to-village-level by fostering a shared understanding of integrated nurturing care, reinforcing capacity and facilitating coordination. CRS and its partners are also enabling service providers to deliver community and facility-based services that support nurturing care, including parents’ groups, home visits, community-based health services, ECD centers, adolescent-focused groups, community-based rehab/AT services, and facility-based health services.

USAID Gikuriro Kuri Bose aims to provide inclusive ECD and nutrition services to all children under 5 years in 10 target districts in Rwanda. A key barrier to expanding disability inclusive services is the lack of a disability- inclusive national curriculum to train community members who run facility-based ECD services for children ages 0-5 years, referred to by USAID Gikuriro Kuri Bose as “ECD caregivers”. To work toward addressing this gap, USAID Gikuriro Kuri Bose partnered with Baby Ubuntu in 2024 to train the program technical staff on basic approaches in early identification and early intervention for children ages 0-2 years with developmental delays and disabilities. USAID Gikuriro Kuri Bose also created disability inclusive mainstreaming guidelines for ECD services, although there is no accompanying training module. USAID Gikuriro Kuri Bose now seeks a consultant to develop a training package to build capacity of 2,623 community volunteers including ECD caregivers, CBID volunteers and IZU. The training package will help to address the lack of skills and knowledge to support children with disabilities especially on communication, feeding children with disabilities, positioning, play and stimulation of Children with disabilities with CP, Spina bifida, Autism, Children with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

• OBJECTIVES OF THE CONSULTANCY

The consultancy aims to develop, test, and translate into Kinyarwanda a harmonized training package on Inclusive ECD services for ECD caregivers, CBID(community based inclusive development) volunteers and IZU to support children with disabilities and disability mainstreaming in ECD facilities and community.

• ASSIGNMENT ACTIVITIES

This consultant will develop an Inclusive ECD training package through:

• Map resources to inform training content /modules. At a minimum, consultant should review Baby Ubuntu curricula, CRS’ disability mainstreaming guidelines for ECD services, Rwandan NCDA’s feeding guide for persons with disabilities, and USAID’s Feeding and Disability Resource Bank and Guidelines for ECD services
• Create/develop the training contents on the following topics: Introduction on disability inclusion, child development milestones & early detection of disability (include referral mechanism), positioning, feeding children with disability, inclusive play, communication, toy making & inclusive toys, gross motor and fine motor development, community mobilization on inclusion of children in ECD and avoid exclusion, inclusive classroom management.

The training package should include a facilitation guide for the Training of Trainers, facilitator guide for cascade training, job aids for ECD caregivers to use when working with children with disabilities, and a supportive supervision tool for USAID Gikuriro Kuri Bose program staff to use to monitor inclusive ECD service provision. The training content will be in accessible format for persons with disabilities. Reviewing the Baby ubuntu training modules, the consultant will focus on the selected modules to be included relating to communication, early stimulation early learning, communication, Positioning and feeding children with disabilities. The consultant will also check with Disability Mainstreaming guidelines, Feeding Practices for children with disabilities, the National ECD standards and ECD guidelines and develop a comprehensive inclusive training package to support ECD care givers, CBID Volunteers and IZU.

 The content will also reflect how to support parents who have children with disabilities

• Conduct a pilot Training of Trainers to test the TOT facilitation guide and adapt the training package according to user feedback.
• The consultant will avail the harmonized training content reflecting the above and shall provide both in English and Kinyarwanda version.

II.4. DELIVERABLES

Following are the expected deliverables from this consultancy:

1. Harmonized training package on Inclusive ECD services for ECD caregivers, CBID volunteers and IZU in English version including a ToT facilitation guide, cascade training facilitation guide, job aids for ECD caregivers to use when working with children with disabilities, and a supportive supervision tool for program staff.
2. Translated and simplified Kinyarwanda version of the above training package on Inclusive ECD services for ECD caregivers, CBID volunteers and IZU
3. Training of Trainers users feedback report from pilot ToT, including.
4. Brief report including the adjustments made to the content based on received user feedback.
5. Final training package both in English and Kinyarwanda.

• TIMELINE

The anticipated length of this consultancy is 30 days.

II.6. REQUIRED EXPERTISE AND SKILLS

The consultant will have the following requirements:

• Excellent skills in report writing and results presentation and collaboration with GOR entities like NCPD, NCDA and international institutions like UNICEF and child focused INGOs.
• Evidence of Experience with a similar assignment will be an additional value
• Proven understanding of the Community Based Inclusive Development approach (CBID)
• Must be familiar with Rwandan context of ECD services
• Proven experience with developing training curricula for adult learners in low resource
• Must have at least five years of relevant working experience in conducting researches and consultancies related to disability and early childhood development service delivery .
• Must have at least a master’s degree in disability studies, child protection, social sciences, education, project management, Development studies and other relevant field with certification of disability and ECD

WORK DETAILS & RELATIONSHIP

The hired consultant will work closely with USAID Gikuriro Kuri Bose’s Disability Inclusion Advisor as the main point of contact for this consultancy. USAID Gikuriro Kuri Bose will provide appropriate approvals, technical and financial support required to fully perform the assignment.

• EVALUATION CRITERIA AND METHODOLOGY

The consultant will be selected using the quality and cost-based selection and the evaluation will be conducted against the following criteria:

V.1. Administrative Evaluation

• The consultant should be legally operating in Rwanda
• VAT and/or Tax clearance certificates if applicable
• Bid validity period
• Bid should be signed
• A cover letter including (hourly/daily) fees and other foreseen expenses

V.2. Technical evaluation

• Relevant Experience in similar work or a link to similar deliverables`40-50 points
• Quality of the proposed methodology 20-30 points
• Qualifications of the consultant 10-20 points

N.B : The minimum technical score for the consultant to pass the technical stage is 70%.

• Consultant to provide at least 2 completion certificates of similar services
• The consultant should provide a CV or Resume indicating education/professional qualifications, relevant experience, contact details and 2 recent professional references
• Technical proposal with details of methodologies and proof of similar and/or related work experience (a link to a similar deliverable, or 2-4 pages of previous work in PDF).
• Any other related document.

V.3. Financial evaluation

The financial score for each consultant will be calculated using the following formula: the financial weight is 30%.

Financial score (FS) = (LF x 100)/ Fi

LF = The lowest financial proposal.

Fi = The proposal to be evaluated.

The winning consultant will be determined by combining the technical scores and financial scores as per the following formula. The winning consultant will be the one who will have the highest combined scores.

Final score (S): (TS x Tw%) + (FSxFw%) where:

S= Final score

TS = Technical score

FS = Financial score

Tw = % Weight of technical score (70%)

Fw = % Weight of financial score (30%)

N.B.

• If consultants obtain the same combined score, the contract shall be awarded to

consultant whose technical score is the highest. If they have the same technical score, the consultant with disabilities shall be awarded the contract.

Price schedule

N.B :

• The cost should be inclusive of required taxes (15% WHT or 18%VAT Tax), If applicable, otherwise explanation on applicable taxes must be explained in the financial offer.
• Submit your final best financial offer quoted in Rwanda Francs (Rwf).

• For your reference, we have annexed to this tender the supplier’s code of conduct that the successful bidder will be required to sign together with the contract.

V.4. Validity of Quotations

The quotation should be valid for the period of 90 days

• Confidentiality

All documents and data will be treated as confidential and used solely to facilitate this assignment. valid Data Controller or Data processor certificate from National Cyber Security Authority-Data Protection & Privacy Office would be an added value.

• CRS Contact Information:

HOW TO APPLY

Qualified Consultants are requested to send their applications to rwandabids@crs.org not later than February 10^th, 2025,at 11:00am. The title of the email must include “Consultancy to develop training package for ECD caregivers in English & Kinyarwanda”. Late submission will not be considered.

You are advised that this tender does not constitute in any way a commitment on the part of CRS/Rwanda or its agents, for any service requested.

Done at Kigali, 27, 2025

Hans Fly

Country Representative