Background
Shelter Centre, www.sheltercentre.org, is a small volunteer driven international humanitarian NGO registered in Switzerland which collaborates with agencies in direct support of their operations, as well as in sector capacity building. Shelter Centre is dedicated to supporting collaboration, consensus and capacity throughout the global technical humanitarian community of practice. We serve the global technical community of practice with regular global practitioners’ events and resources. Shelter Centre has been a pioneer since 2006 in Drupal in the humanitarian space. The shop which developed our www.humanitarainlibary.org, for example, went on to redevelop ReliefWeb, the famous UN humanitarian portal used worldwide and notably in disaster affected countries – and the platform we are posting this ToR on.
The Humanitarian Library has been consistently indexed for the last 15 years and now ranks at the same level as leading UN websites. It was designed in conversation with ReliefWeb to dovetail a cord-sourced and community moderated knowledge sharing platform with more formal, peer-reviewed normative platforms. We offer a big shared drive, where local and international humanitarians can share and organise knowledge: ‘learn what works, share what works’. We offer unique functionality enabling users to collate knowledge around a specific operational activity, so they can ‘do’ policies appropriately locally and share how they did them, so others may learn from their experiences. Moreover, HL is a pioneer in Humanitarian Knowledge Management, and we have presented twice at the UN annual innovation conference HNPW, including this year, as well as to our colleagues in the H”H Network.
We are looking for ‘Drupalers’ available for a few hours a week, or for a sprint, to help us take some steps forward, but also to co-create unanticipated steps, based upon their skills and understanding. Steps we have anticipated include incorporating the new ReliefWeb API announced last month, so we can share our knowledge with them, and they can share theirs with us.
Steps we would like to develop with you include ‘following the path of knowledge’ or making the analytics of the library more visible and useful to our users, which are predominantly from the Global South. Steps we would like to explore with you include using small language models to make humanitarian knowledge directly useful to affected populations, as we presented at HNPW, and as we are already achieving through infographics.
The internships offered, which over 1,000 have valued to-date, are for those seeking to make a humanitarian contribution, or those committed to a future career in humanitarian action, seeking experience and opportunities to inform their decision in identifying directions. Interns are the foundation to our work and we offer weekly bilateral personal development opportunities. Former interns have gone on to work with donors, UN agencies, the Red Cross Movement, and INGOs, local NGOs and CSOs, including ReliefWeb!
Main Responsibilities and Tasks
Selected volunteers will support Shelter Centre in the following activities, but not limited to:
- Develop, test, and maintain Drupal-based websites and PHP applications and collaborate with cross-functional teams to plan and implement new features
- Optimise existing codebases for performance and scalability
- Troubleshoot and debug issues efficiently
- Optimise the sharing of knowledge through API interfaces with platforms such as Relief Web
- Develop a knowledge base of Pakistan, one of the project activities and the analytics to provide transparency of information to the users
- Maintain technical documentation for modules, themes, and system architecture and evaluate existing systems and recommend improvements for efficiency and scalability
Required education, skills and experience
- Commitment to humanitarian action, seeking career transfer into the humanitarian profession
- University degree, ideally in Computer science, Software Engineering or Information Technology (IT) or any other related field
- Strong experience with Drupal or PHP frameworks. Proficiency in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and MySQL and be familiar with version control systems (e.g., Git)
- Strong organisation skills and demonstrated experience in IT, multi-tasking, prioritising and working accurately to set deadlines
- Proven ability to work effectively and harmoniously in a team of colleagues of varied cultural and professional backgrounds
- Fluent spoken and written English (minimum Level C1 proficiency) any other language is considered an advantageous
Conditions and Application process
- Availability: The availability sought is six months, with a minimum of four months. This position will be for a sprint (5-10 hours) basis a week. All positions will begin with a one-month probationary period.
- Location: The positions are virtual, meaning interns will work from home. Shelter Centre will only consider applications from individuals who hold or are likely to obtain a valid permit which allows them to reside and undertake internships in their country of work.
Successful candidates will bear their own insurance, accommodation, living and travel costs. Travel is not required.
How to apply
Applicants are encouraged to submit a CV and motivation letter as soon as possible, as recruitment will be undertaken on a rolling basis.
To apply for this position, please submit your CV and cover letter in English to [email protected]. Be sure to include the job title you’re applying for in the subject line of your email and any relevant supporting documents.
Deadline: Sunday, August 31, 2025, at 11:59 CEST.