WASH intervention targeting conflict affected IDPs and their host communities in remote and hard to reach districts of Uruzgan and NFI Stock Stockpiling to Meet the Needs of the Most Vulnerable Displaced in Sar E Pul Afghanistan. According to figures of relief web publication of OFDA for September 2017, over 17,062 IDPs are currently sheltering in the Uruzgan province from 2017.The prolonged fighting and the restricted access to the province is the reason why the province is hard to reach and therefore underserved. ZOA envisaged this project to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance following the increase in the number of vulnerable IDPs, affected by the escalating conflict in Khas-Uruzgan and Chora Districts of Uruzgan during the last 6 month. Due to recent CHF grant allocations namely for the central district of Tarinkot, the situation for the conflict IDPs supposed to be improving. Nevertheless, according to the extensive HEAT assessments that were carried out by ZOA in the recent weeks, the named districts of Khas-Uruzgan and Chora are badly affected communities with considerable numbers of fresh IDPs in dire need. As many as 5364 families are reported to be conflict IDPs in the 2 mentioned districts 612 in Khas Uruzgan and 4752 in Chora. These results are already communicated with the concerned Clusters in particular WASH and Shelter as well as the Gov. of Afghanistan (GoA) relay agencies. As a result, this project proposal has been designed for the 1st CHF allocation of 2018 to provide:
WASH: This includes installation and rehabilitation of emergency boreholes, provision of emergency sanitation for vulnerable fresh IDP families and hygiene promotion, in order to ensure sufficient quantity of safe drinking water. The provision of emergency latrine construction materials to vulnerable families will improve the hygiene situation and will have strong positive protection impacts. ZOA's WASH intervention includes a hygiene promotion campaign, to share and teach safe hygiene practices in the communities incl. schools. The hygiene promotion includes the distribution of hygiene kits in communities to selected recent IDP families according to the WASH Cluster standards. A community based hygiene promotion campaign has limited effect if the schools, where the most vulnerable individuals are concentrated are not included. Therefore, ZOA will propose to support children in schools with an extension of the sanitation facilities, including access to safe water and a hygiene promotion campaign including a special school hygiene kit. This will have positive effects on the critical hygiene situation in the existing and often overburdened schools and will address protection issues especially for girls in terms of dignity, privacy and security. From ZOA’s experience in projects in Nangarhar, the hygiene interventions especially tailored for children in schools, which includes the teachers and the PTAs (Parent Teacher Associations) have a more lasting effect on the overall hygiene situation than the community hygiene promotion alone. WASH Cluster also promotes this integrated approach and urges the partners to include schools into the project. The central government often neglects communities in very remote areas such as Khas-Uruzgan and Chora, areas more or less under control of AoGs, and the schools there are no exception. Therefore, the sanitation facilities are regularly out of function, the next water point is far away or/and water unsafe for consumption. The effect is that children regularly miss their education because they get sick from the unsafe water, easily infest their siblings and families at home. The open defecation practice worsens the environment. The HEAT assessment conducted by ZOA identified vulnerable persons including IDPs, women, children, and people with special needs, sick and elderly. The total number of beneficiaries was determined in close coordination with ANDMA, DoRR and the department of education as well as own our assessments, the selection of communities and schools are based on the needs and physical access to project area.
The project aims to procure, strategically pre-position and store 500 emergency stock in ZOA's Store.