Provision of winterization assistance for the most vulnerable families in Khash,Darayem, Darwaz-e-Balla  Raghestan (Badahkshan) This project will support 10,290 shock affected individuals (1,470 households) in Khash,Darayem, Darwaz-e-Balla amp Raghestan districts of Badakshan province, giving priority to the most vulnerable people including Persons with Disabilities (PwD) and pregnant women and lactating mothers (PwLm). The high vulnerability level of the identified households comes from different driving factors as such the recent conflict, a severe drought, the economic and financial crises that impacted negatively the families’ coping mechanisms and largely destroyed their livelihood assets. The approaching winter season will further impact the families’ vulnerabilities. 

As per the recent figures and findings of clusters, partners, and Mission East’s (ME) assessments these people are facing a dire humanitarian crisis and require urgent humanitarian assistance particularly under food security, health and winterization support. Under this call, ME will provide cash for winterization in one installment through a Direct Cash token system provided by a mobile telecom company (heater and fuel/gas to 1,470 HH @200 USD per HH and cash for winter clothing to 1,470 HH @ 74 USD and blankets to the same 1,470 HH @57 USD). The mobile telecom company will generate a token to the identified beneficiaries through which they will receive the cash from the mobile telecom company’s agent in the districts. The mobile company implementation modality has been chosen to minimize potential financial risks and to further ensure the safety of Mission East staff and beneficiaries. This operation modality has been tested during 2022 and results in a successful experiences of cash distributions through mobile companies under the AHF 2nd allocation. The service providers proved to be efficient in AHF funded project as well as under other donors funded Cash Based Intervention (German MFA and Danish MFA).

The foreseen kickoff of this project will be on the 15th of November 2022 to allow the targeted population receiving a timely and adequate humanitarian response through the cash distribution fulfilling their winterization needs during the cold and harsh winter. The project is intended to cover 220 HH having pregnant or lactating mothers (corresponding to the 15% of the beneficiaries). This target group will be prioritized. The proposed project will cover 4 districts of Badakshan province (Khosh, Darayem, Darwaz-e-bala, Raghestan). 

As a certified Core Humanitarian Standard member (CHS) member, ME has a strong MEAL department in place that will carry out all the complaint mechanism processes as well as the regular monitoring of the activities. The complaint mechanism system with 3 different communication channels (boxes, phones numbers and in person) will started form the inception phase and endure till the end of the project’s implementation. 

Baseline and end-line evaluation will be conducted to estimate the impact of the intervention upon beneficiaries’ conditions and to measure the satisfaction of the project beneficiaries. Mission East communicate with beneficiaries in a transparent way on the complaint functioning both through focus groups meeting and through visual informative banners.
The breakdown of the targeted households per cluster is as follows:

Badakshan 1,470 hhs with 10,290 persons: 4 districts, Khash 360 hhs with 2520 persons Darayem 360 hhs with 2520 persons Darwaz-e-bala 360 hhs with 2520 persons Raghestan 390 hhs with 2730 persons.