Community-based Child Protection and Mother and Child Health for vulnerable populations in Nangarhar and Laghman Provinces - Isthema project 3 Since Dec. 2015, Tdh has been implementing a project called Ishtema (meaning “community” in Dari and Pashto languages) through CHF funding in Nangarhar, then in Nangarhar and Kunar and now Tdh will scale up its activities with this third phase proposed in highly affected by return, of Nangarhar and Laghman provinces. 
The project intends to strengthen the resilience of the most vulnerable returnees, IDPs and host community/conflict affected population in isolated areas of Nangarhar and Laghman by the end of May 2018 : by reducing vulnerabilities through access to information on CP, non- formal MRE, and RMNCH (prevention), by addressing specific needs through community delivered life-saving psycho-social services, direct provision of RMNCH care and case management system (protection) and by strengthening community based protection mechanisms of Community Based Child Protection Committee (CBCPC) and volunteers.
In the area of intervention selected by Tdh, is contaminated by UXO, especially in Nangarhar. According to DMAC, approximately 70 incidents occurred due to mines in the eastern provinces in 2016. DMAC and Tdh will continue to train CBCPC on non-formal MRE (DMAC) and CPiE (Tdh). The CBCPC will deliver the training within their community in order to raise awareness and mitigate the risk of casualties and child protection concern.

Daily basis life-saving PSS activities in the villages will be delivered to improving copying mechanism of children and to detect the most vulnerable children in need of further assistance. Tdh will provide case management and direct assistance for the most vulnerable families identified. 

Tdh RMNCH activities proposed are based on the successful and long term experience acquired in outreach experience Kabul Informal settlements. In the proposed project, Tdh’s midwife will carry out home to home visits, to identify pregnant and lactating women, to provide perinatal care, postnatal care, to prepare birth preparedness plan, and newborn care. They will encourage women to have safe delivery, and convince husband and family about the importance of accessing to Health service provider. 
Tdh midwives will advocate and support vaccination especially during the health education sessions based on material developed by MoPH. The topics will cover hygiene and sanitation, danger signs of pregnancy, childbirth and newborn, nutrition during pregnancy, breastfeeding.
Tdh’s actions will help reduce the risk of mortality by better identification of the poorest, most vulnerable and conservative population and by diminishing the risk of delivery without skilled attendant. Tdh will work in close collaboration with WHO, MoPH, and the entire Health cluster member to ensure a smooth and efficient collaboration and continue to improve RMNCH and combat child and maternal mortality of the region.
This 12-month project (from 1st June 2017 to 30th May 2018) will be implemented in the eastern provinces as follows: 
- In Nangarhar: Sukhod (10 villages), Behsud (10 villages), Kama (10 villages), Rodat (10 villages), KuzKunar (8 villages).
- In Laghman: Qaraghayi (10 villages) and Mihtarlam (6 villages) 
In Nangarhar and Laghman, around 370,102 Afghan refugees (documented and undocumented) have been registered after they return from Pakistan, where conflict induced 39,300 IDPs in 2016 and where high presence of prolonged IDP were reported by the REACH report. Tdh will continue to target the most vulnerable among the vulnerable individuals (IDP, returnee and host community). The data collected during Ishtema activities will be shared with cluster and OCHA regularly and when relevant will be shared with other partner for further support for the area where Tdh intervene. The sustainability and relevancy of the proposed project will be reinforced by integrating lessons learned of the evaluation realized in Dec. 2016 by ATR consulting, and by continuing working and empowering a network of volunteers