WASH  Protection response for IDPs, Returnees and host communities in Ed El Fursan, Elsalam  Katayla Localities, South Darfur This proposed one-year project will support integrated WASH and protection services to strengthen resilience among the IDPs, host communities, and returnees in Ed El Fursan, Al salam and Katyla Localities, South Darfur state. This program will be happening amidst the global COVID 19 pandemic, with 1,526 cases reported in Sudan on May 12, 2020, and first cases recorded in Darfur states. While there are projects and components in our program portfolio dealing directly with this emergency, ARC is well aware of the enormity of the challenge and its protracted nature and will gear its interventions towards prevention, response and dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic, in conjunction with our other interventions. ARC will focus on providing quality WASH and protection services. 
The WASH sector intervention will focus on access to safe and dignified water and sanitation services and promote proper hygiene and sanitation practices and disease risk prevention. The importance of this intervention cannot be overestimated at the time of COVID-19 outbreak when reliable water supply means enabling people to practice hand washing and household hygiene as the key prevention methods. ARC will work towards these objectives through rehabilitating existing water systems at health facilities and in communities community engagement in the construction of new household latrines using community led total sanitation (CLTS) approach, dissemination of messages on safe hygiene practices around water safety and personal hygiene, particularly hand washing and social distancing at WASH service points, and improving beneficiary capacity and competency to manage WASH facilities. On the protection intervention, ARC will strengthen human protection of vulnerable individuals (people with limited mobility, children, and women) through protection activities responding to gender-based violence (GBV) and related harmful practices, capacity building of community- based protection networks, stakeholders, awareness-raising. Additionally, ARC will establish referral mechanisms, support people with disabliities (PWD), and conduct awareness-raising sessions/campaigns. The protection intervention aims to give back the missing values of respect, dignity, freedom, moreover provides protection, tolerance, equal opportunities and justice, to reduce the vulnerability of at risk women, girls, elderly people and Person with specific needs. The ARC will work around three protection intervention modalities: 
1. Provision of improved protection services through the establishment and reinforcement of Women Centers (WC) in these locations to increase the level of protection and mitigation risks related to violation against women and related harmful practices. The WC activities will be linked with community based protection activities to syndicate positive change along with the opportunity of income generating activities for the most vulnerable women as a way out of the cycle of poverty. 
2. Strengthen capacity of existing women protection system by reinforcing the legal framework. ARC aims to strength community-based protection system and create a coordination mechanism for a better protection response and case management, mitigate risk. 
3. Improve community level monitoring

We expect 49,900 people to benefit from this intervention this includes IDPs, returnees and host communities. The breakdown by gender and age is as follows: Men (19,775) Women (20,850) Boys (4,250) and Girls (5,025). 30 people with disabilities are also expected to benefit from the project. The wider community will also indirectly benefit from the different activities proposed.