Providing Mobile Health Services through MHTs in underserved and hard-to-reach areas of Kandahar Since 2015, BARAN is the BPHS implementer in Kandahar province and recently conducted a quick assessment and desk review which indicates the affected population in underserved and white areas of Kandahar province may need to walk longer distance to reach health and other basic services.

At the same time, limited existing or accessible healthcare is a high risk in the districts of Kandahar. Scale-up of mobile health teams and health surveillance to deal with the health implications of the likely drought, disease and malnutrition in these locations will be important.

As per the latest PPHD white area list of Kandahar province, a huge number of people are living in white areas where they have limited or no-access to health services. BARAN through this project, aims to improve access and utilization of basic primary health services as well as psychosocial support to the 44,775 (direct service users) in the four districts of Kandahar province (one MHT in Panjwayee, one MHT in Maruf, two MHTs in Arghestan and two MHTs in Speen Boldak). For this purpose, we will 1) Establishing, equipping and staffing of 6 Mobile Health Teams (MHTs) in above mentioned districts 2) Provision of psychological first aid and counseling and referring of patients with symptoms of psychological trauma and other psychosocial problems 3) Provision of emergency primary health and nutrition services to the targeted population through MHTs. 4) Integration of COVID 19 response such as screening and referral in the package of services to be provided by the MHTs 5) Identification, Management and referrals of GBV survivors 6) Community awareness raising particularly on prevention amp transmission of COVID 19 infections, proper hygiene practices amp prevention of GBV. 7) Nutrition screening, growth monitoring, identification amp treatment of acute malnutrition children, referral of complicated cases of MAM and SAM as well as counseling of PLW on breastfeeding amp Infant amp Young Children Feeding (IYCF). The duration of project will be 6 months starting from 1st May 2022.

MHT structure is consists of a Male doctor, a nutrition nurse, a midwife, a psychosocial counselor and a vaccinator. The project management team (Consist of project coordinator, Field Supervisor, MampE Officer and Admin/ finance officer at Provincial Management Office) can efficiently and transparently manage the project with the support and close communication of BARAN management team. Meanwhile, required equipment, medical and non -medical supplies, transportation, IEC, and health/nutrition promotion materials as well as sufficient running cost will be provided to the project. In addition, BARAN builds and maintains close coordination with the public health directorate of the province, national amp regional health cluster and other stakeholders as well as community for the smooth implementation of project. We will contract vehicles to provide mobile services for the teams. As a cross-cutting matter in this assignment, BARAN will be accountable to the people it serves by providing information people want and ways to give feedback, including making a complaint. BARAN also will consider the minimum gender marker code within the proposed project. We will ensure that gender equality and gender awareness activities are mainstreamed within the scope of the project. BARAN provide necessary trainings to MHT teams and will conducts regular supervision, monitoring, coaching, and mentoring of the MHTs to ensure the quality of services as per the standards and project requirements. Accordingly, women, men, boys, and girls of all ages including the people with disability will benefit equally from the proposed interventions. A total of 44,775 individuals in the host communities of Kandahar province will directly benefit from the project. This figure consists of 16,583 men, 20,729 women, 3,317 boys and 4,146 girls which including 3761 people with disability.