Binational Youth Education Program Coordinator

The Willamette-Laja Partnership seeks a Coordinator for our Aves Compartidas youth migratory bird education program. While remote, this position will require interactions with teachers, students, and Community partners in the Willamette Valley, Oregon, with a focus on the Portland Metro area. Multiculutral literacy an Spanish language skills required. Our partnership is with the Laja watershed schools and conservation groups in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico.

Who We Are

The Willamette-Laja Twinning Partnership (WLTP) is a binational peer-to-peer learning experiment developed in 2015 to bring together conservational professionals, university students, and youth. We have resources to specifically expand our Aves Compartidas youth education program in the Willamette and Laja watersheds. With newly formed partnerships in the Portland-Metro area, we are planning cross-cultural exchanges for professionals, university students, and primary school teachers.

The Partnership is eager to advance strategically into the Metro area. We are currently serving schools with the Aves Compartidas program in the North Clackamas area, which creates an opportunity for our team to form new community partnerships and habitat restoration efforts working with 3rd-5th graders. In addition to the North Clackamas area schools, we are actively working on expanding to serve 1-2 additional bilingual elementary schools in East Portland and Gresham area. Each of the Metro area schools we aim to bring on are dual-language (or support a large BIPOC/Latinx community) and have restoration opportunities on or near their campuses. We also have planned Aves Compartidas expansion in Eugene/Springfield.

For implementation of all our programs, including Aves Compartidas, we partner with University of Oregon Environmental Leadership Program students (8-12 students per class) in developing and implementing curriculum and engage Oregon State University with supportive interns. As the program expands to the Portland-Metro area, we are working closely with Portland State University’s (PSU) Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) in the hopes of developing volunteer opportunities, paid internships, and curriculum tie ins. We also have university partnerships in the Laja region, Mexico, and have had several successful internship exchanges.

Community Partners

The Twinning Partnership has engaged over 50 conservation groups, governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and schools throughout the Willamette and Laja basins. After only one pilot year in 2018, the Aves Compartidas program doubled the number of participating schools. We also more than tripled the number of private donors and grants received in 2019. In 2020/2021, during COVID-19, we were nimble and innovative, and our grantors were flexible. We have several individual champions of our programs. Their stories can be seen here.

This position will be housed and supported by one of our major partners, the East Metro STEAM Partnership (EMSP). Their team will be the employer of record and coordinate closely with the WLTP strategy team on administrative issues. The WLTP will be the direct point of contact for all program implementation with our team committees’ support. The EMSP director and their leadership will provide our partnership incredible connections with community groups throughout the Portland Metro area. You can find details about their breadth of community and institutional participation here.

Challenges and Opportunities

The field of conservation science is most often promoted and instructed in English in Western nations. Aves Compartidas empowers students all along the Willamette River Basin in dual language programs and focuses on providing meaningful cultural and linguistic connections for our Latinx students (both immigrant and non-immigrant). Students in this binational partnership have exchanges with each other throughout the year through shared writing, art, videos, activities, and “pen pal” postcards that generally focus on the shared migratory bird species between the Willamette and Laja watershed basins. Schools in our program serving high percentages of students from underrepresented communities who can engage in natural resource management and environmental health are benefiting from a real-world exercise, formation of international peer connections, and engaging in applied habitat restoration and protection activities.

We have an opportunity to grow the program for not only greater student engagement in both basins, but also to use this time to perform outreach to families related to migratory birds and their habitats through the support of the teachers. Also, with multiple philanthropic foundations and private donors currently supporting our capacity, we can now begin developing more resources and increase our outreach to the private restoration and native plant nursery industry. This position will assist with these efforts by creating materials to reflect the successes and continuing needs of the Aves Compartidas program. Full community engagement is a priority moving forward with Aves Compartidas, with support from the entire WLTP team.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

The WLTP was founded by a binational steering committee of habitat conservation professionals with diverse racial and cultural identities. We have remained oriented with the diversity of our leadership, committees, instructors, and internship program. We offer multicultural learning/DEI professional development to our team and the group shares resources related to DEI on a regular basis. We specifically engage underrepresented and minority communities in the Willamette region. The Willamette and Laja partner to connect on a platform of cultural connection and the importance of recruiting and empowering emerging leaders in watershed health. Our team promotes personal and professional development in DEI to achieve our mission:

Cross-jurisdictional actions for watershed health addressing climate change locally and promoting binational collaboration and peace.

The Twinning Partnership fosters peace through a cross-cultural bridge creating a sense of personal purpose and collective power for educators, conservation professionals, youth, and our communities.
The Twinning Partnership achieves measurable outcomes for migratory species and their habitats through collective, action-oriented education and peer-to-peer learning.

What We Are Asking

Our partnership is creating this new position to continue advancing the youth program and broaden the family outreach and connections with schools in the Portland-Metro Area. We are asking that the Aves Compartidas coordinator engage in the following:

Solidification of current and future participation for dual-language immersion schools in the Portland-Metro region.
Engage all university partners) to continue a “cohort model” approach for assistance with school instruction.
Consideration of professional development benefits to emerging watershed health professionals, including partner training opportunities that can be passed to folks, and enrollment in professional development.

Provide leadership in the coordination of the Aves Compartidas group including planning meetings, strategic planning for the youth program, and maintenance of the exchange experience between students including student artwork, writing, videos, and photos using a shared drive with our Mexican partners.
Outreach to students’ communities/families with assistance from the WLTP Partnership Coordinator, interns, and planning team.
Support the WLTP Partnership Coordinator in pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities for emerging Willamette and Laja professionals.

How to apply:

Please review our webpage https://www.willamette-laja.org/opportunities. Please submit your cover letter, resume, and three references in a single PDF document by April 12th to Willamette-laja@gmail.com. This salaried position will begin at 0.5-0.8 FTE (part-time and hours flexible) and be prorated from a 1 FTE equivalent of $50,000 per year with benefits. The partners are actively seeking to grow the position to 1.0 FTE with additional funding support, and if selected applicant should be available to move toward 1.0 FTE. More detail on funding and expected evolution of the position will be explained in detail upon interview.

Considering this is a remote salaried position, WLTP and will provide the employee with a computer, software necessary for the position, mileage and supplies reimbursements.
Employee is expected to be based around Portland-Metro region in order to provide more hands-on support of these target schools, but also is expected to travel 1-3 times monthly in the Willamette Valley to visit our partners in Albany/Eugene area. Employee is also expected to participate in a paid group exchange to Mexico in 2022 (contingent on COVID-19 evolution and public health guidance for both US and Mexico at the time).