DEC Coronavirus Appeal fund Oxfam has prepared the COVID-19 Response Strategy based on the needs, gaps, sectoral priority and organisational capacity. All humanitarian actors in country are making all the efforts to meet the life-saving emergency needs of people of Afghanistan and still fall short of achieving the minimum target due to shortage of funds. Last year the funding fell short by 75.2%, as per the current HRP.WASH is a key focus for Oxfam along with Emergency Food Security and Protection. Herat and Daykundi are priority provinces for Oxfam in Afghanistan. This project is designed in alignment to this Response strategy and HRP.
In both provinces, Oxfam has extended presence and various other projects. Proposed project will link with other ongoing projects that have explicit focus on GBV/VAW, staff will collaborate and link with sector specialist staff as and when needed. This can take form of Psycho-social counselling and psycho-social support services, in Women Friendly Health Spaces that are already established in bothprovinces. In addition, where possible, Mobile Outreach Units will be available, they travel to the communities and raise awareness and link protection specific cases toconcerned organisation or service provider. Technical expert staff members of Protection/GBV project will provide orientation to staff members of this project so that they can understand the issue and its sensitivity, able to identify protection concerns and properly inform right persons considering the sensitivity and confidentiality ofthe issue.
This project will directly benefit at least 3328,000 women, men, girls and boys in 4 districts of Daykundi and Herat province of Afghanistan - Miramor district in Daykundi, and Koshk-e-Robat Sangi, Enjil, Zindajan and Ghoriyan districts of Herat province.

Hygiene Kits (see below in the text for the kit contents) and awareness sessions to female and male members of targeted households (HHs) will ensure that they follow the minimum hygiene practices and keep themselves safe from the deadly virus as well as other water and vector borne diseases. Support provided to theWASH Committees in the localities will ensure that the communal water points remain clean and hygienic and keeps the community safe. This will directly benefit 28,000 women, men,girls and boys of 4,000 HHs and also some WASH Committees in their community.

Household (HH) level Hygiene Kits: the project will distribute kits as per Afghanistan WASH Cluster standards and recommendations and adapted to local context and culture.The kits contain 7 Bathing Soaps (250gm each), 7 Laundry Soaps (200g each), 2 Plastic Soap Case, 2 Plastic Jerrican (Rigit, 10 Ltr each), 1 Ewer (Aftaba as household handwashing tool, 2 Ltr), 2 Packets of Sanitary Pads (Normal, 10 pcs in each packet) and1 printed COVID-19 Awareness Message (IEC material in local languages for COVID-19 in line with MoPH, WHO andUNICEF guidance). Oxfam office in Herat and ADA in Daykundi will follow all the norms of coordination for selection of communities considering vulnerability, exposure to risks and action of other actors in the district. HHs will be selected following a transparent and participatory manner by engaging the community people and following the basic selection criteria as practiced by all WASH Actors in Afghanistan. Door to door survey or remote survey will be used considering the risk level of the pandemic, digital data will be collected using HEAT and will be analysed for selection and recording of the community data. Selected HHs will be informed tocomeand collect the items from a distribution point. Oxfam/ADA will try to take the distribution point as close to the community as they can. Women or child-headed households, households with aged or people with disability and also more number of children will be prioritized for selecting for this intervention.  The Hygiene Kit is designed by the WASH Cluster considering the needs of women and adolescent girls in the society.

Hygiene Awareness Session: 1 female and 1 male member from each of the HHs receiving the Hygiene Kits will be invited to participate a session in local language by local staff members. This session will contain general hygiene practice, water safety, COVID-19 awareness, dos and don’ts for general water safety, hygiene practice and COVID-19. IEC material in local language will be used for these sessions which was developed by WASH Cluster for Afghanistan and also the one developed with COVID-19messages. Each session will have only 10 men or 10 women considering the cultural practice of Afghanistan and COVID-19 guidelines. This will ensure that at least 50% of the people attending the awareness sessions are women. This will have impact on carrying the good messages to the children of all the households better. On the other hand this will encourage better participatory decision making in the families.

WASH Committees: will be formed with 5 women and 5 men from the community. They will be given orientation on personal, household and environmental hygiene practice and will be given responsibility to follow-up with their respective community that it is maintained. This will be their proactive and voluntary service to the community and in previous programmes was found to have good impact on sustainable service in the community beyond the project duration.

Hygiene Kits for WASH Committees: this is a special package designed in consultation with a number of existing WASH Committee Members (with 50% women representatives) in different rural communities where Oxfam is already working. This will be given to each WASH Committee formed and/or oriented under this project so that they can use these to keep their Communal Water Points clean and safe for all the community members using them. This will contain 15 Kg of bleaching powder, 15 Ltr of Disinfection liquid, 1 Spray Pump, 4 brooms, 3 pairs of Heavy-duty Rubber Gloves, 1 box(100 pcs) Surgical Masks, 6 bottle of hand sanitizer (400ml each) and 2 pairs of Rubber Boots. WHO guideline for disinfection efforts in Afghanistan gives priority to disinfecting health facilities and also indicated environmental cleaning in community places, this will be used for that purpose. Afghanistan WASH Committee encouraged this new package proposed by Oxfam.

Handwashing Stations: Handwashing Stations will be installed in the targeted schools before they re-open, complimented by awareness sessions and specially designed IEC material, to ensure that the students and teachers in the schools will be able to protect themselves from the deadly virus as well asother water and vector borne diseases. This will directly benefit at least 5,000 female and male students and teacher in 10 schools. Oxfam will directly implement this project in Herat while ADA will be implementing it in Daykundi province.  50 students per handwashing station. This is as per the design accepted by the Afghanistan WASH Cluster and will contain locally available items and technology which will be easy for the users to use and maintain. The package will contain a small water tank witheasy-opening tap, a stand at good height for washing hands, supply of soaps for 50 boys and girls for 2 months, and a total of 100 handwashingstations.

Hygiene <(>&<)> COVID-19 Awareness Sessions for Schools: will cover all the schools covered by Handwashing Stations under this project, the total number of schools will be confirmed at a later stage when the schools are identified and they agree for this activity.

IEC for Students: Oxfam/ADA Hygiene Promoters will use local IEC materials designed by WASHCluster and orient the student of the schools about water safety, personal hygiene, household hygiene and environmental hygiene practice, dos and don’ts for COVID-19, misperceptions related to COVID-19. Students will be encouraged to wash their hands every day when entering the school. s. IEC will be in a workbook format (note book for practice and working) with the covers printed with Hygiene and COVID-19 awareness messages. These will spread the health and hygiene messages to the community and will retain forlonger time in front of their eyes to remind them practice and make it their habit.

Despite not having specific budget or related Output targets, this project will also do the following:
- Demonstrate good practice of women and men working together and learning together for betterment of the society as a whole
- Sensitize more staff members as well as community leaders, including both women and men from the communities, about women claiming their rights and contributing to the society.
- Theprojectwill keep an eye on the Protection concerns and PSEA issues andall staff will be trained to report them properly. Staff members of this project will work as change agents for Gender Equity and watchdogs for GBV or Protection Concerns.