Sea-Watch sucht Media Airborne Officer (30h/week/ immediately)

Sea-Watch e.V. is a non-profit initiative dedicated to civil sea rescue for people fleeing across the Central Mediterranean Sea. Due to the active isolation policy of the European Union, thousands of people drown trying to reach a safe port in Europe every year. We oppose the EU’s deadly and racist migration policy. Sea-Watch stands publicly for safe passage and freedom of movement. Sea rescue is a state duty: the fact that civil organizations take over this task can not be a permanent condition. Sea-Watch is party-politically & religiously independent and financed exclusively by donations.

The vacancy will closely work within two departments: our Media department and the department for Airborne operations. Our Airborne team operates daily monitoring flights over the Central Mediterranean with three aircraft. They are an activist team consisting of several paid people coordinating and performing the flight operations and many volunteers making sure that our work gets done. Thus, Airborne is the eyes of civil society, revealing the European Union’s racist and deadly migration policy. Media work relating to our flight operations is crucial to making this happen.

The media team, in turn, is responsible for Sea-Watch’s public relations (social media presence, press relations, campaign management, supervision of media coordinators on missions, and photo and video editing). The team is closely involved in the organization’s day-to-day operations, accompanying the activities of the aircraft and ships and ensuring public outreach and communication during operations.

To ensure close cooperation between both teams, to manage our public relations work concerning flight operations, and to support the volunteer media activists on board the aircraft, we are looking for a second Media Airborne Officer (d/f/m;, 30 hours per week).

Concretely, this means:

• Ensuring close communication and cooperation between the Airborne and Media departments.
• Taking care of our public relations outreach (press & social media) together with, f.e., our social media managers and other press officers.
• Active press handling, including proactive and reactive press work as well as press crewing for our Airborne operations.
• Being in charge of crewing volunteer media activists for the documentation of our flight operations.

If you are passionate about fighting Fortress Europe, are media-affine, and like communicative work, we would love to have you on board!

Your responsibilities:

• Be the communicative link between the Airborne and the Media team by, e.g., providing political contextualization and updates about our flight operations.
• Active and reactive presswork regarding our Airborne operations including press releases, interviews, press briefings, background talks and much more.
• Conduct research about new actors and emerging trends in the Central Mediterranean, potentially collaborating with investigative journalists.
• Active outreach, crewing and handling of journalists to place our Airborne operations in public media.
• Conceptualizing and creating Social Media content together with our Social Media Managers.
• Outreach to photographers and filmmakers to meet our constant need for media crew members on board our aircraft.
• Accompaniment of media crew members throughout their operational deployment.
• Keep an eye on the political context of our operations and follow the latest developments in the central Mediterranean and neighboring countries.

Your profile:

• You are passionate about fighting Fortress Europe & you strive for an intersectional understanding of the EU’s border politics and its consequences.
• You have a talent for communication, grasping complex (political) issues quickly, and you know how to convey information to different target groups.
• You understand how the press and social media works as you have a minimum of 3 years experience as press officer and/or in another relevant position in the media field.
• You have a good grasp of networking and finding interested media outlets & journalists, and/or you have a network of journalists to engage in our operations.
• You are willing to represent our Airborne operations in interviews with the press, media outlets, and at events. After a sufficient time of familiarisation, of course.
• You possess soft skills such as social empathy, a mediatory approach, and approachability to take good care of our media crew members.
• You know your way around basic graphic programs and possess basic skills in editing photo and video material.
• You have excellent German and English language skills. Italian is an asset, as are other relevant languages such as Arabic.
• You are flexible in scheduling your work, and you are open to working on weekends and during evenings if needed. As our operations differ in time and are scheduled flexibly, the job comes with standby/on-call hours.
• You are willing to be an active part of our flight operations occasionally.
• You are willing to travel to Lampedusa, Italy, amongst other locations.
• You are preferably located in Berlin.

What you can expect from us:

• A meaningful, varied job with a lot of responsibility and a basic monthly salary of 2.550 euros (30h/week) employee gross (increases possible based on various factors*).
• Additional benefits, e.g., company pension scheme.
• 30 vacation days with a 5-day week and flexible time off in case of overtime and after deployments. Furthermore, after 18 months of employment with Sea-Watch, one additional holiday month is granted (paid).
• Internal or external vocational training.
• Fixed-term contract for one year with the option and wish for extension.
• A rapidly growing non-profit organization with emerging challenges and ideas.
• A dynamic, varied work environment.
• A meaningful activity to fight for safe passage and freedom of movement.
• Work at the intersection of media, political, and operational work.
• A working field with a direct impact on public discourse.
• Participation in our flight operations as an occasional aircrew member.
• A good office atmosphere in Berlin or Leipzig with a motivated team.
• Flexible working hours, working time models, and the possibility to work partly in a home office or remote.