Protection monitoring and response to the earthquake emergency situation To provide critical protection response to the June 22 earthquake in Paktika and Khost provinces that killed some 1,036 people and injured 2,949 others, UNHCR will undertake the following actions targeting Barmal and Giyan in Paktika Province and Spera in Khost Province. Women, girls, persons with disabilities and others with specific needs in the affected areas will be the focus of the interventions. 

1.	Establishment of “Community Centres” to facilitate access to protection services and information
Access to information on available assistance and services has become even more critical given the destruction of basic infrastructure including telephone networks. To facilitate the affected population’s access to vital information, UNHCR will establish “Community Centres (CCs)” in strategic locations in the affected districts, ensuring the coordination of information provision with operational partners and the Awaaz humanitarian call centre. The CCs will be staffed by in-take personnel, information counselling staff, and psycho-social (PSS) counsellors and will cater for 900 individuals during the period of the project. UNHCR will coordinate and collaborate with operational partners to provide specialized services such as legal assistance at the CCs, as appropriate. The CCs will be used as a ‘one-stop shop’ for various services and for accessing critical information. Beneficiaries will be able to obtain information on available services and the means to access them how to protect themselves and their families from health-related risks how to lodge complaints and provide feedback directly to staff or through complaints boxes and how to receive PSS, legal counselling and other protection support. Vulnerable individuals will be identified and referred to available services and support. The CCs will also be used as hubs for various mobile activities in villages such as outreach and information dissemination, awareness raising on various issues, protection monitoring and mobile PSS counselling. 

2.	Protection monitoring: through Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and Key Informant Interviews (KII) as part of Community-Based Protection Monitoring (CBPM)

UNHCR will conduct protection monitoring in affected villages to reach out to women, girls, persons with disabilities and other vulnerable person unable to visit the CCs. The protection monitoring will identify key multisector and protection needs that will help inform the broader emergency response and identify persons in need of referral to other services as well as persons to benefit from UNHCR’s assistance programmes, including the protection interventions proposed under this proposal. The FGD modality is to be used to facilitate an age, gender, and diversity approach to be able to effectively communicate with different age and gender groups as well as with persons with disabilities (PWDs). The FGD approach will further underpin two-way communication, especially with women and girls and to receive recommendations from all groups about their specific needs. The KII modality will help to reach a broad range of respondents, to identify needs at the community-level. During the project, UNHCR will conduct 84 FGDs and 150 KIIs.

3.	Psycho-Social Support (PSS) 

UNHCR will provide counselling through individual sessions, separately for men, women, boys, girls, and PWDs based on identified needs, in addition to family counselling and groups sessions to community members. These sessions will be provided in different locations based on the preferences of the client as well as accessibility, including through on-site field missions. While the focus will be on counselling, individuals identified as having severe mental health problems will be referred specialised service providers capable of responding through clinical interventions. 130 families (910 individuals) and 300 community members will be provided with counselling.