Provision of protection services to children and women during winter season Children and women are one of the most vulnerable categories in the upcoming winter season who are detrimentally impacted by the livelihood crisis worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic which compounds the vulnerabilities arising from protracted conflict in Afghanistan. Children in Crisis is requesting $250K to mount a rapid response to mitigate and respond to the protection risks related to the current crisis and to increase access to essential information, supplies and services for 16000 conflict and crisis-affected individuals across Badakhshan, Bamiyan, Kabul and Paktika provinces. Protection programmes will be implemented in Faizabad, Kishma Argo districts in Badakhshan, Bamyan, Shibar, Panjab, Yakawlang districts in Bamyan, Kabul, Paghman, Shakar Darah, Guldara, Istalif districts in Kabul and Sharan, Yousufkhail, Gomal and Barmal districts in Paktika. These provinces have been classified as Priority 1 provinces and have the highest need for winterization assistance as per the Inter cluster Winterization Strategy 2020-21 Kabul among them has the highest number of people in need for winterization assistance.
The project promotes the physical and psychosocial protection of vulnerable conflict and crisis-affected children and women during the upcoming winter season through (i) Case management services (which includes identification, intervention plan and referral services for children with vulnerabilities due to winter season and COVID-19 (ii) Establishment and training of community based protection committees to identify, respond to protection risks and incidents and refer and follow up for specific services and (iii) Provision of essential winterization kits. The strategic selection of these activities is intended to respond to protection risks of children in the immediate term compounded by the current crises, whilst building sustainable institutions to increase communities’ resilience to the long term, embedded protection risks for at risk children and the wider group of children.
The project uses a scaffolded intervention that intensifies support and services across categories of increasing vulnerabilities: 2500 vulnerable households with more than four children, identified through vulnerability and needs assessment will receive essential life-saving winterization kits to support the children of households by providing warm clothes and blankets, that supports them to continue attending school, and interact with other children in public space during the winter season. 56 vulnerable communities shall benefit from the functional community based protection committees which shall be trained to mitigate and respond to protection risks of individuals and groups in the community 2900 vulnerable children (including children at significant risk: UASC, CAAFAG, street children, GBV survivors) shall benefit from the direct referrals and supplementary services provided by Children in Crisis. Specifically, 250 UASC children at significant risk due to separation from caregivers will receive counselling and case management services and 250 children at severe risk of exposure to exploitation and violence will receive specialized services including interim care, case management and family tracing and reunification.

Children in Crisis [CiC] is a protection sector specialist, recognized as one of the “Top Ten NGO” actors by the Child Protection Action Network [CPAN] in 2019. Our extensive experience and expertise in protection programming – with proven approaches to working with incarcerated children – positions us to implement an intensive intervention over a six-month project period. At present, CIC also operates an Education in Emergencies intervention targeting 3500 conflict-affected children in Uruzgan under the Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund approx. 20% of this intervention includes integrated protection activities that underscore our sustained commitment and capabilities in protection.