PROVISION OF MOBILE OUTREACH PROTECTION SERVICES FOR CONFLICT AFFECTED POPULATION IN AFGHANISTAN Background: Youth Health and Development Organization (YHDO) was established in 2009 by a group of health professional with objective to serve the marginalized and affected population of the country. YHDO has a leading role in capacity building of health workers of health facilities on different topics including but not limited to Syndromic management of STIs, Gender and health response. YHDO is also working with marginalized and hidden population in the community through establishments of health centers in Kunduz, Balkh and Kabul provinces.

Rationale for the proposed project: OCHA reports reveal increasing instance of conflict and conflict induced displacement, refugees and returnees in Afghanistan. The plight of this population is also well documented and there is enough literature globally that establishes acute need of psycho-social support for this population and support for mental health disorders as they are extremely prone to post traumatic stress disorders and other mental health illnesses. Reports also indicate prevalence of abuse, gender-based violence and sexual exploitation of young children. The IPDs do not have access to any form of support system to deal with such situation and to cope with them. The proposed project aims to fil this gap within the framework of building the capacity of the community to self-protect themselves and also to link them up with existing service providers and services related to psycho-social support, mental health and other medical, legal, etc. services available.

Location: We propose to implement the project in three provinces in Afghanistan (Kunduz, Baghlan and Takhar).

Objective: The overall project objective is to create a protection conducive environment to prevent and respond to forms of physical harm, violence, abuse and exploitation. This is within the Strategic Response Plan 2016 HRP SO2: Respond to conflict displaced refugees and vulnerable returnees.

Outcome and outputs: We propose to achieve the following outcome – “To reduce the vulnerability of conflict displaced refugees and vulnerable returnees” through achievements of three clear outputs: (a) 25% increase in awareness levels of IDP/refugees/returnees regarding coping mechanisms, resilience and available support services including mental health risks (b) 20% increase in rate of help seeking for treatable mental health disorders amp 10% reduction in risks to treatable mental health disorders And finally (c) 20% increase in number of people accessing psycho-social support services.


YHDO will adopt a gender-responsive implementation strategy which will revolve around peer-education and peer-led approaches to outreach. The focus will be on increasing awareness and self protection capacity of community, provide access to counseling and mental health screening and referral services , psycho-social first aid awareness and coordination with provincial case management committees. The project will aim at build the self-protection capacity of the community through a series of life skills development interventions and community support group structures. One of the most significant contributions of this project will be to develop Community Watch Dog Committees for community owned and led intervention around case identification and referrals for survivors of violence and abuse.

The project will be implemented in close coordination with stakeholders at different levels and will follow all standard project management, reporting and quality control procedures within YHDO.