Terms of Reference

Production of Animation Videos and Project Brand Designing

1. Background

Plan International Nepal is an independent development and humanitarian organization that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. Plan International Nepal has been working in Nepal since 1978 to help most marginalized children, their families and communities for accessing their rights to survival, development, protection and participation. Plan International Nepal operated programmes through development partners in 24 districts in coordination with government, civil society organizations and schools.

Plan International Nepal has its regular programmes in Sunsari, Sindhuli, Makwanpur, Banke, Bardiya, Jumla and Kalikot districts at present. As per new country strategy (2018-2022), Plan International Nepal has focused on Early Childhood Development, Inclusive & quality education, child and girls’ protection, empowerment of girls and resilience of community.

About the Project ProTEcT: (Protection, Technology, Education and Transformation) In Nepal, between 7,000 and 12,000 children are being trafficked each year to countries such as Bangladesh, India and the United Arab Emirates where they face exploitation, predominantly in the commercial sex industry, but also as victims that are sold into forced labour1. Unregistered migrants, including the large number of Nepalis who travel through India or rely on unregistered recruiting agent are particularly vulnerable to forced labour and sex trafficking. ProTEcT program, is a multi-year, comprehensive project working directly with all major stakeholders within the targeted communities to ensure that there are comprehensive, holistic solutions (education and training, economic empowerment, systems strengthening) at all stages of the trafficking process, focusing on prevention (before trafficking), action during transit (during), and rehabilitation of survivors (after). Currently this project is running simultaneously in Nepal and India. The project will be implemented in three districts where Plan has been implementing an anti-trafficking program for several years: Makwanpur, Banke and Sunsari district. This project will carry out national-level activities, too, particularly in advocacy and campaigning. In this endeavor, it will work with government line agencies, national- level networks and other stakeholders, seeking their support and collaboration.

Goal of the project: Goal: Children, families, communities, and societies in Nepal, Bangladesh and India have strengthened prevention mechanisms against child trafficking, improved repatriation processes, and are supported to reintegrate survivors safely.

1 US Department of State, 2014, Trafficking in Persons Report

Result areas Result Area 1: Children and families can identify risks, conditions and consequences of child trafficking, actively take steps to protect themselves, report cases of trafficked children and support the reintegration of survivors and access to services. Result Area 2: Community social safety nets and structures are strengthened to prevent child trafficking, facilitate access to services, and support reintegration through child-friendly and participatory methods.

Result Area 3: Both state and non-state actors have increased capacity to respond to child trafficking, safely repatriate survivors, and facilitate their reintegration.

How do we achieve these results?

Increased awareness of the risks, conditions and consequences of child trafficking among families and children.

Parents and caregivers will be actively taking steps to protect their children and children protect themselves and their peers from trafficking threats

Ensuring improved attitudes and behaviors of parents and caregivers against harmful social norms that are drivers of vulnerability

Ensuring improved access of vulnerable families to economic opportunities and services

Strengthening community-based mechanisms actively to protect children from trafficking threats and support reintegration of returned survivors

Reducing repatriation processing time

Increasing capacity of duty bearers to provide appropriate prevention and response to incidences of child trafficking

Increasing linkages amongst inter-government, intra-government and non-government organizations to address child trafficking issues

With this background, Plan International Nepal through the project- ProTEcT is developing various communications materials including animation videos based on the learnings of the project to prevent and protect children especially young female child from trafficking and unsafe migration. Also through the brand development of the project is initiated to develop the uniform messaging throughout the SBCC procedure.

2. Purpose of the assignment

This assignment is to develop a preventing tool to educate, inform young children especially age from 12-16 years and other members of the community to understand about the trafficking and unsafe migration trends. This assignment is for developing 6 animation videos series with coordinated messages and development of the project brand design along with SBCC materials designing. As the project wants to develop its anti-trafficking campaign through the character based branding. Thus the project would be needing uniformity through character based branding in all communication materials (including animation and other communication designs). So that people will aware about the key messaging. The animation series will be a key tools to sensitize children, youth and adolescent and acts as a key communication tool to the diverse audience in Sunsari, Makwanpur and Banke districts and all over Nepal. The brand designs and the animation series should be in line with the values, strategy and approaches of the Plan International Nepal. .

3. Scope of work

Under the supervision of the Social Behavior Change Communication Specialist, Project Manager and Communication Manager, the consultant team will develop the brand designing, SBCC materials designing development and the animation series as per the requirement stated below. These materials should duly follow Plan International's Safeguarding Children and young people Protection Policy and following the branding and visual guidelines.

4. Methodology

Under the supervision of the Social Behavior Change Communication Specialist, Project Manager and Communication Manager, the consultancy team is required to:

receive orientation and briefing will be given by the ProTEcT Team regarding the context and need of the development of the Animation and the project brand design along with SBCC materials

the Consultant team will be visiting to the project district upon consultation for better understanding about the situation, music, language and other related cases

the Consultation team will be presenting about the overall project management of the brand campaign, development of SBCC materials and Animation series as a single unit

the consultation team will prepare a detailed planning include on timeline of development of the animation series and brand designing and development of SBCC materials with the key messaging and Plan branding guidelines working together with SBCC specialist and Communication Manager

development of communication materials would be done by the 20th of April, 2020 with the leading characters with the constant communication with SBCC specialist

regular follow-up and feedback session will be held while developing the design and animation materials for the project with the SBCC specialist and the ProTEcT Team

the consultation needs to Pre-test and Post-test of the communication package for the clarity of messaging amongst the audience

finalizing the project’s deliverables

5. Output/deliverables

The consultant needs to develop 6 animation videos with coordinated messages and brand campaigning (design materials) in consultation with the ProTEcT Team. The communication materials have a set deadline for completion. These communication materials will be launched and showcased in an event on World Day against Trafficking in Persons on 30th July, 2020. Thus, all the brand design and the print should be completed before hand giving the emphasis on creating the brand recognition with the lead character by the end of March. Regular communication will set up for the necessary interaction during development of communication materials. Animated series will be educational, informative and entertainment values to showcase in school outreach program, social media and in different events and gatherings to raise awareness against trafficking and unsafe migration trends. The brand development materials would be use throughout the project period in its project.

Lead characters, “Maya” (weightage 75%) and Udaya (weightage 25%)

6 animation series (story board-animatic-final delivery ) under different key messaging developed under SBCC on the format that is compatible for every format (high definition, social media suitable format)

Promotion materials for animation videos and launching event (description in table below)

Development of the SBCC materials through the character based designing of the project (description in table below)

The communication materials (including animation videos and project brand designing and SBCC materials ) should be pre and post-test for the clarity and suitability of the messaging

Submit the layout and designing in the final version of the print (in CMYK) in high resolution format

6. Target audience of the communications materials:

Target audience of the animation videos will be the children from 12-16 years. Though the primary audiences are 12-16 Years Children, since the project is running under the socio-ecological based model that means the communication model is designed to make impact to the individual/family level, in the community level and in the society level. The messaging and the construction of the character need to inspire various age groups. The brand designing and SBCC materials will also follow the similar suite of considering 12-16 years children and 18-24 years young people especially female as primary audiences but to consider other age groups as a secondary audience.

7. Final Deliverables

The final deliverables of the assignment will be as follows: 1. Animated video stories – 6 (around 300 seconds) with using latest information technology,

in Nepali with English, Tamang, Awadhi and Maithali subtitle by 7 July 2020 that are compatible in every format of visual display in high screen and in social media

2. The brand design and SBCC materials design needs to submit by 20 April, 2020 3. Promotional materials (t-shirts with the animated characters, diaries) to promote the

animation itself by 30 April 2020.

Animation Series

Task Specification

Development

Story:

Revolving story with theme- Maya with the sub heading of “Mayaka sahasi Kathaharu”-The animation series will consist 6 key messaging for the six stories for animation video which addressed different information and entertainment to prevent people from trafficking.

Create the conceptualization of ideas and creation of the storyboards that translate these ideas into visual form.

Two directional digital story, dialogues, interaction, voiceover, musical soundtracks

Character:

Developing characters as required, utilize the concept of less is more and meaningful

Animation Series

Task Specification

Building props, environment and characters

Modeling to complete 3D

Characterization with get-ups, looks, appearances (this should go with our working district- local look and dialect but also have challenge to give the familiarization of whole Nepal and if possible South Asian region)

The animations should be children and youth friendly. It should also consider the varieties of audiences such as person with disabilities for example it should incorporate sign language. Characters- Lead characters are briefed. Other characters needs to be incorporated according to the need of the story. The appearance and the nature should reflect the ambience of the program areas: Banke Sunsari and Makwanpur. The background music, geographical account and the dialect needs to be incorporated from all three districts.

Story Board

After finalization of mini stories for the animation, the team will develop story board. This will give us an idea on how the story will looks in visual representation

Production

Props & Background: building assets, characters-anatomy, costumes etc (that has been pre-visualized in 3D)

Rigging: Every Character needs to be rigged in order for it to be animated

Animatic: This stage is done after story boarding. This process is critical as it gives a clear idea about the character’s performances.

Animation: Animation is actually giving life to the characters based on the story board and the animatic

Post Production

Lighting and Texture: This gives color and mood to the scene (Shot)

Compositing and special FX: Putting all the rendered images/film files to derive the final output that is actually used for editing

Color correction: this is the final process helps to adjust the color and brightness (Luminance) using video inside bin in the software.

Rendering and exported

Music and sound effects- we need the final product in high resolution (Usage- social & digital media, email format, HD, to screen in QFX and movie theatres for promotion)

Editing and Final output

The background music should be used that can match the local geographical areas. The sound that represents any music with the Maithali Music, Music from Nepalgunj and Tamang music needs to be added in the video

The animation also needs to cater the local dialect of these three region

The signature tune needs to be developed around 30 seconds as an intro for every animation videos

Sound that related to community, school, villages etc will be incorporated depending upon the story

Animation Series

Task Specification

Titles and credits (see the table below for the titles and the name of the characters)

Also need to include the logo and the campaign of the Girls Get Equal Campaign which will be provided by Plan International Nepal

Post Production

Marketing and communications- making the animations and static designs for promotions in digital media friendly- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, official websites

Developing social media adverts in an short animations and static design for the promotion

Designing social media post for long run- cover page, profile picture, Facebook/twitter/YouTube/Instagram posts with messages.

Promotion through the social media outreach/boost for a specific and larger audiences

Comic

Upon the consultation with Plan Nepal to integrate the animation in comic e-book which will be easy for us to send the materials via email or print if required.

Sign language Incorporating sign language in animation itself

SBCC Communications Materials

SBCC materials designing

Infographics using character of the project- 3 designs

SBCC material design: multi-dimensional safety-kit design, notebook, pen, characterized T-shirts, stickers, folders,

Project Design Materials

Project Brand Designing

Presentation- 2 master designs

Hoarding board design (in consultation with SBCC specialist)

Specific character introduction “Maya and Udaya”

Event banners design- 2*5 = 3 designs, 8*10 designs, photo frame, gate

Specific program logo and relevant designs in the project

Social media posts (filter, profile pics, GIF animations, frames )

Poster, pamphlets, stickers, folders

Characterization The characters are some of the lead characters. The characters will be developed accordingly to the need of the story board and with the relevance. Below is the preliminary ideation of the context and the character of the animation which is subject to change and modification upon the consultation of the vendor and the Plan International Nepal.

Context The community is multilingual community with mixed caste and has somewhat sort of untold conflict in themselves regarding the class-division. The engagement and activities are less in the community that binds thus having less interaction and concentrated towards only their family matters. The community is based on agro-economy that means it includes the peasant to the farmers and other professional holders. Thus it is not sure for the stable source of economy to run the family throughout the years. People are worried

due to inflation. In this situation young males and females are not confident enough that they could make good life through the education. Thus, people; especially young female and male both are much influence to improve their life better than to have education which would not result into the direct impact in the lives. Thus, these people are more concern towards earning, to foreign employment and also community are more motivated to send these youths in productive and more earning region to live a better life. The current trend of entertainment and the use of mobile phone and social exposure through social media platforms have influence youths to have better understanding of the dressing sense and the quality of life with the travels. Though the community is moving for the development, the existing social norms, values and the social issues like dysfunctional family, patriarchy and the quarrelling among the family members have paralyzed the coherence among the family in some level and had made families more vulnerable. Thus, youngsters feel to have change in their life, change in their family and change in geography. Therefore, people who are onto the business of unsafe-migration and trafficking are more active towards striking towards these vulnerabilities.

Maya Maya is 16 years old child. She is a champion. But she being champion is not natural born or gifted. The situation had led her to be the champion. An intelligence and logic comes to her procedure and way of doing. Her mother owns a hotel, father went for foreign employment and brother in a furniture shop. The character though is lead, but represented as a normal character with normal presence. The character represents the extra-ordinary work through the correct procedure, logic and self-belief by an ordinary person, a person that represents the millions of young women. The works or the steps and action needs to be extra-ordinary by the ordinary men. She is not usual types of vocal activist, but she does make a statement regarding the time and situation. (This specially because it does bring activist into the discipline and introvert to a necessary appealing that to voice when needed) Her logic is her way of empowering herself. She is at her last year of school and have observed the community in a very close manner. She has witnessed how the situation has developed in the community. She deals things in compassionate way and empowers people so that they lead for the action.

Udaya Udaya is a male protagonist. He is also a regular child similar age of Maya and also in the same grade in the school. His father left them early and his mother is a single mother. He lives with elder brother and sister. He is brought up in the patriarchal values thus being masculine is his way of doing. This sometime contradicts with the nature of Maya and sometimes brings healthy confrontation. He is also active youth but the situation in his home is often not empowering due to the weak economic and social condition. His brother often approaches for the foreign employment. He at begin supports the movement but due to the development of incidents in his life, he became champion of change and a male alliance.

Didi

Didi is called didi by everyone. She is middle aged person and has observed society in fore front from past decade. She is community health volunteer. She at her prime career tried the community to motivate in various positive movement, she tried but the society wanted not to have those spaces regarding the time and

context. Although she is recognized for as for health support as this is dire need for the society. The community guardians does not give much space to her opinion in the community. Didi becomes crucial in activating leadership of Maya and Udaya in many instances. She has abundance of knowledge and saw community changing thus her role in mentoring Maya become crucial in developing agency and taking the steps towards anti-trafficking and unsafe migration.

Adakshya jyu Adakshya jyu represents the political character and the front runner of the community. He is the president of the rural municipality. He is not a predictable character as being political person he shows both on and off color to adjust the things in the society. The journey of the Maya also revolves around shaping this character with firm leadership and protective and accountable towards the society. He has an ample skill of communication and influencing on people. Sometime he too shows the strong masculine character too. The political motive is seem in seen and unseen label, showing the pragmatic situation of the real life where things are not often black and white. His realization and leadership towards the climax remains very much crucial and exemplary to acknowledge about how president in rural municipality should act in these changing scenario.

Rajat Rajat is a person in his late 20’s. He is not that literate but always have an eye to earn the money. He is of mixed character, he is approachable yet he is mischievous too. He is college dropout and does many things to earn, that includes doing work and doing things that should not be done as well. He is social yet he is unpredictable, He has his own way of doing. He is strong yet gullible. Trafficker has keen eye on him to use him as a key person to influence in the society. Though his intention is not bad but he becomes gullible in the situation.

Police Dai Police Dai Police Dai is natively from far west working in the community. The police syncs with the community and also reflects the community in so many level. His journey of realizing his role and his actions towards raising awareness after realizing the few cases in the community becomes crucial

These characters are some of the lead central characters that has prominent role in the animation videos with other side characters who has different role according to the need of the animation videos.

8. Time frame and estimated working days

The assignment should follow the following timeline for the completion.

Activity Est. No of work days

Call for proposal for expert consultants 15 days

Finalization of proposal and agreement 7 days

Orientation and briefing with SBCC specialist and Project manager and communication team for preparation and story line

1 day

Review of project documents and Project Briefing 4 days

Dummy design for the project brand development including the character development

10 days

Draft project identity designs 18 days

Finalization of all the design materials 10 days

Animation Series

Dummy story development of animation videos 24 days

Draft submission of the story board of the animation series 8 days

Finalization of the story board and animatic 20 days

Draft submission of first three videos 30 days

Feedback incorporated first three videos 3 days

Draft submission of fourth, fifth and sixth videos 30 days

Feedback incorporated final version of third and fourth videos 4 days

Project wrap with the final products 7 days

9. Consultant’s Qualifications and experiences

The consultant team should have at least 5 years of work experience in brand development and the animation of the project/program or the success for diverse audience. The consultant should have good knowledge, experience in producing animation video materials for young people (12-16 yrs) and young people (18-24 yrs) on various development themes, particularly on trafficking and unsafe migration.

Proven experiences in producing animated short films on the social issues. Proven experience of making animated videos under the theme of trafficking and unsafe-migration would be added advantage.

Proven experience in creating brand and campaign development especially in the development field and have sound knowledge on printing materials as well

Excellent content writing, script writing and copy writing experiences

The team member having field based experience on trafficking and unsafe migration in Nepal would be an added advantage.

Good understanding of child protection and safe-guarding, including the prevention and protection of trafficking and unsafe migration to young people

Excellent knowledge, experiences and skills in producing animated stories, short videos for various audience, videos particularly for donor community,

Able to travel and coordinate with team members to produce materials as indicated only if required

The team needs to be equipped with the requirement to produce quality product with sufficiently available of the technical equipment

A dedicated team to meet all the qualities and requirements as mentioned in the TOR

10. Ethical and Safeguarding Children and Young People Policy:

Child protection is a term used to describe the responsibilities and activities undertaken to prevent or to stop children being abused or ill-treated. It is Plan’s duty and responsibility to reduce the risks of abuse to the children who we have contact with and keep them safe from harm. Plan’s Child Protection Policy, “Say Yes to keeping children and young people safe.” Plan International Nepal is committed its overriding framework to protect children who come into contact with Plan International employees, volunteers, partner organizations and

individuals, including consultants, who are working on behalf of Plan International. The consultant should include statements in the proposal on how he or she will ensure ethics and child protection during the commencement of the assignment and during the field work. The consultant should also specify other ethical protocols to be followed during the due course of the evaluation. The consultant is expected to take consent of the respondents and/or children’s guardian before taking photographs and ask if their photographs, verbatim or case stories could be used in report and for public dissemination. Such consent must be documented and submitted to Plan International Nepal along with the final report.

11. Submission of Proposal:

The Offeror shall prepare both the “Technical” and “Financial” Proposal. Also include the electronic copy of Technical Proposal (in word version) in a CD/pen drive inside the technical proposal envelop. In the cover letter of proposal the offeror must have to mention “Production of Animation Videos and Project Brand Designing for ProTEcT”.

1. Sealing and marking of proposals The Offeror shall seal the Proposal in one outer and two inner envelopes, as detailed below.

(a) The outer envelope shall be:

Addressed to – Plan International Nepal Country Office Maitri Marga, Bakhundole, Lalitpur, Nepal

and, marked with – “Production of Animation Videos and Project Brand Designing for ProTEcT”. (b) The 2 inner envelopes shall indicate the name and address of the Offeror and should be clearly marked with “Technical Proposal” and “Financial Proposal”. In summary, there will be one separate sealed envelope for the Technical Proposal including all required legal documents and one separate sealed envelope for the Financial Proposal only.

Note: If an offeror submits the financial proposal (budget) within or in the same envelop as the technical proposal, it will be automatically disqualified. 12. Deadline for submission of proposals

Proposals must be received by Plan International Nepal at the address specified under clause Sealing and marking of Proposals no later than 04:30 PM on 16th March, 2020.

13. Selection criteria for hiring consultant

Description of Item Weighting

%

Does the consulting firm/individual have past experience in similar task?

50%

Does the team leader and its members have relevant academic qualification as per the job assigned?

5%

Is the production methods proposed realistic and relevant to the objectives of assignment?

15%

Is proposed time plan including field plan (timeline) realistic? 15%

Is ethical consideration management included in proposal? 5%

Does the team have own office, equipment's and required services to produce the materials?

10 %

14. Supervision

The SBCC specialist, Project Manager along with the communication manager will supervise the overall process of the production and be the first contact for the selected consultant team. The consultant team will work closely with the Program team (Protection) and other relevant programme colleagues including the project team at country office and field.

15. Cost and payment

The consultant should submit the total budget in the proposal with detail breakdown including applicable taxes. 25% amount will be paid immediately after signing of the agreement, 50% amount will be paid as per the scheduled assignment (draft videos development, project identity design), and 25% will be paid after the accomplishing all the task with satisfactory output. The final product will be reviewed by Plan International Nepal.

16. Intended users

The products will be used for the informational and educational purpose to the different dynamic of audiences throughout Nepal including students, community stakeholder, government actors and general public. The brand development used throughout the SBCC materials in the project life-span.

17. Rights to Copyright

The produced materials shall be the absolute property of Plan International and ownership shall automatically vest in Plan International so all the copy right will be with Plan International Nepal. Materials collected during the field trip cannot be used by any other parties other than Plan International. The master designs and the master characters will be solely the copy righted products of Plan International Nepal. The consultant irrevocably and unconditionally waives in favor of Plan International any moral rights that may exist in any of the works or materials, provided that Plan International uses all reasonable endeavors to ensure that the consultant (photographer is credited in all appropriate uses of a photograph provided as part of the service, provided that Plan International shall not be in breach of contract if credit(s) are accidentally omitted.

Consultancy Validity Check List:

Applied For: …………………………………………………………..

Name of Company/Firm:……………………………………………Bid Submission Date: ….…………………

S.No. Required document Yes/No

1. Scope of work

2. Methodology

3. Outputs/ deliverables

4. Timeframe and estimated working days

5. Qualification and experience of the consultant/ team

6. Ethical and child protection statements

7. Proposal signed and stamped

8. Separate sealed envelope for the Technical Proposal and separate sealed envelope for the Financial Proposal

9. Firm/company registration with renewal is attached

10. Registration with income tax office (VAT) is attached

11. Tax Clarence for latest FY 2075/76 is attached

Note: Document received without having mentioned above documents will be considered as disqualified. Furthermore, individual bidding consultant must be VAT registered and must submit registration document. Consultant without VAT registered/Tax Exempted organization will not be entertained.