Director
Screwworm Free Future
📍 Remote (Global) 🕔 Full Time
⌛ 01/03/2025 💰$60K USD
Screwworm Free Future is a volunteer-led organisation investigating the political and scientific barriers stopping South American governments from eradicating the New World Screwworm.
We are looking for someone to lead this project on a full-time basis. This will be our first hire, with the work so far having been done by a group of volunteers who are excited to continue to support the Director.
The Director will contribute with a combination of high-level strategy, key stakeholder engagement, and operational execution. This is a founding team role that requires someone who can wear multiple hats while maintaining straightforward priorities.
About Screwworm Free Future
Screwworm Free Future (SFF) was born in the summer 2024, when volunteers from different backgrounds joined through the animal advocacy network Hive to explore the possibility of founding an organisation to accelerate the eradication of the New World Screwworm from South America. Through the months, we have grown to a team of 19 volunteers who meet bi-weekly to discuss our progress. Our activity has, until now, focused on reading scientific papers and meeting with key stakeholders to understand the status of screwworm eradication. We have met with several government officers, and have gained knowledge through meetings and exchanges with researchers working on veterinary medicine, economics, and gene editing.
We have quickly reached a point where the pace of progress and our ambitions have exceeded the team's ability to keep up on a volunteer basis. An organisation devoted to accelerating the eradication of screwworms would need dedicated staff to keep researching the plausibility of intervening to make real change, position themselves as a trusted interlocutor between governments, farmers, and researchers, and lobby different stakeholders to direct more resources, time, and attention to screwworm eradication.
About the New World Screwworm (Cochliomyia hominivorax)
The New World Screwworm (NSW) is the larvae of a parasitic fly (the New World Screwworm fly) found all over the American continent, except in the regions near the poles. The NWS fly lies their eggs in the open wounds of warm-blooded animals (mammals and birds). When the eggs hatch, the larvae, equipped with powerful hooks “screw” and eat the live tissue of their hosts. This process of being infected by fly larvae is called myiasis, of which New World screwworm is a major cause in Latin America. Infected animals experience severe suffering, as NWS eat nerve-rich tissue, leading to painful deaths from tissue destruction, secondary infections, organ failure, fluid loss, exhaustion, a combination of the above, or being caught by predators because of their weakened condition. Specific treatment for the myiasis produced by the NWS (to which only farmed animals would have access) is not available, besides opening the wound with a knife to clean the area, which is later sprayed with insecticide. This is done without the use of anaesthesia, also leading to intense suffering.
Beyond its significant impact on animal welfare, which affected an estimated 500 million animals in 1999, NWS also causes major economic losses to the countries in which it is present. Through conversations with stakeholders and research, we have learnt that NWS leads to a loss of 41 million USD/year in Uruguay, 52 million USD/year in Argentina, and 450 million USD/year just in navel myiasis in Brazil. These losses are caused by the mortality of farmed animals, the routine controls to which animals have to be subjected, and the treatment of infected animals. Precisely for this reason, the U.S. eradicated NWS from their territory and led their eradication from Central America down to Panama, where it created a biological wall to prevent re-infestations. The eradication and the wall were done through the use of the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT), which consists of irradiating NWS flies with radiation that sterilises them. Since female screwworms only mate once in their lifetime, when the sterile males are released, there is no reproduction, and the population shrinks. Since the eradication of NWS from North and Central America, the U.S. has been funding a biological wall of sterile NWS in Panama, where more than 20 million flies were released per week to prevent NWS from crossing to Panama and beyond. The wall worked until 2023, when it broke, leading to the partial reinfestation of NWS in Central and some parts of North America. Therefore, this could be a pivotal time to accelerate the eradication of NWS through transnational coordination.
Responsibilities
The Director will contribute with a combination of high-level strategy, key stakeholder engagement, and operational execution. We want to be clear that this is a founding team role that requires someone who can wear a multitude of hats while maintaining straightforward priorities. Some of the responsibilities of the Director will include:
Lead the project
Drive forward the project
Develop and execute the organisation’s strategy
Make strategic decisions
Determine the future path of the project
Execute and/or manage maintenance tasks required to run an organisation, such as: managing the budget, accounting and finance, hiring contractors
Lead future rounds of fundraising and hiring
Perform constant data collection for impact assessments
Coordinate the volunteer group
Coordinate a volunteer group to help with your efforts
Delegate tasks to the available volunteers ranging from research, communication, social media, etc
Maintain volunteer engagement and awareness of the project's direction
Research
Conduct research to inform the direction of the project, including on advocacy strategies, identifying key stakeholders, and into scientific questions on different eradication methods.
Develop an understanding of the political and interest group landscape in South America relating to screwworm monitoring, prevention and eradication
Develop a solid understanding of the current situation and methods for the eradication of the screwworm
Develop and implement advocacy strategies
Lobby decision-makers, public officers, and leaders of interest groups to accelerate screwworm eradication
Work with funders to direct resources to screwworm eradication initiatives and research
Organise coordination events between governments, institutions, and interest groups
Write reports and policy briefs
Expand our network
Engage with professional policy-makers, industry lobbies, the animal advocacy community in relevant countries, and scientists
Proactively expand the network of Screwworm Free Future
Communication
Communicate with a wide range of stakeholders with differing motivations and concerns
Maintain a public presence, including posting updates in forums, and the website
What We’re Looking For
We are particularly excited about working with individuals who:
Are proficient in English as well as either Portuguese or Spanish, with excellent interpersonal, written and verbal communication skills
Have a track record of leading projects and working independently
Have experience in policy advocacy, animal advocacy, law, government, or a related field
Are familiar with the policy landscape in South America
Are able to communicate successfully with a wide range of stakeholders with differing concerns, ability to build and maintain strategic relationships
Are concerned with animal welfare, and motivated by our vision and mission
Are highly motivated to carry this project forward, as it will require lots of independent work
Can manage multiple workstreams simultaneously
Are organised and proactive
Have an intense commitment to impact-driven action, evidence-based approaches, and especially cost-effectiveness minded
Logistics
Contract: 1-year initially, subject to further funding opportunities
Hours: Full-time
Salary: $60,000 USD
Location: Remote. Preferably located in South America with ability to travel within the continent as required. Or located elsewhere and able to travel to South America as needed
