Community Engagement Office — Adopt a Tributary

West Wales Rivers Trust (WWRT) are recruiting a Community Engagement Officer to continue our efforts to better connect with communities living in South West Wales with their local rivers, understand their needs and concerns, and deliver a range of volunteer projects and events that will improve their health and wellbeing, as well as the health of the river.

As Community Engagement Officer, it will be your job to continue and expand our ‘Adopt a Tributary’ project, supporting the formation of new community river groups and upskilling existing groups to become eyes and ears on our rivers and to deliver a range of river restoration improvement activities.

You will also deliver informative and engaging educational visits to schools and other local organisations such as angling clubs, Scouts groups, wellbeing groups, corporate groups and councils. You will build new relationships, consult existing volunteers and better understand how the rivers of West Wales and their tributaries can form a more meaningful part of people’s lives. We want to ensure community input and benefit are at the heart of all our projects and you will be given significant autonomy to explore and develop new ways of making this happen.

Essential criteria are an ability to work independently and creatively as part of a small team, good people skills and a committed, professional, and flexible approach to your work. We are looking for an individual with experience of delivering an array of practical community engagement activities such as walks, volunteer clean ups and educational workshops.

You will be an approachable and friendly communicator who will be able to lead and inspire others to preserve and respect the natural world whilst building strong relationships and partnerships to achieve outcomes on the ground. Also essential is experience in developing funding bids to a range of organisations – our ultimate aim is for this project to be a permanent position and for the postholder to identify funding opportunities to continue their work with communities into the future.

The Community Engagement Officer will report to the CEO and the board of trustees and attend local stakeholder meetings as required, to ensure that the interests of local communities are considered in the multi-organisational planning of works in the catchment.

Although most of your work will fall between normal business hours, community engagement events and meetings can be held in the evening and at weekends. A reasonable commitment to out-of-hours working will be required and compensated with time off in-lieu. The Trust does not have an office and desk-based work will require home working. Due to the split of funding for this position, most initial projects will be delivered in the Swansea and Neath Port Talbot area. However, activities will take place across our catchment in Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion.

Essential candidate skills:

• Experience in environmental education and community engagement
• Strong social and inter-personal skills
• Excellent organisational and networking skills
• Ability to work unsupervised
• Full driving license and own vehicle
• Strong computer literacy (Microsoft Office, social media, WordPress, email)
• An understanding of river ecology and pressures and a genuine desire to improve them
• Experience of developing funding bids

Desirable candidate qualities:

• Knowledge of and connection to the South-West Wales area and its settlements
• Academic training in a related environmental science (conservation, biology, geography) with knowledge of aquatic ecosystems and conservation
• Welsh Language skills or the desire to learn throughout the duration of employment.Initially this is a five day per week position for one year, with the potential to extend with successful fundraising.

If you would like to discuss the post further, please contact: Harriet Alvis, CEO at [email protected]

Visit the West Wales Rivers Trust website to learn more about the organisation.
Click here for the full job description.

To Apply

To apply for this post please send your CV with a covering letter (both 2 sides of A4 maximum) to Harriet Alvis, setting out your experience and qualifications.

Closing Date for applications is 12pm, Monday 10th April 2023.