Humanitarian Response to Most Vulnerable Afghan Refugees
SPADO rendered humanitarian support to flood-affected and newly returned Afghan Refugees in the urban cluster settlements of District Peshawar and flood-hit areas in Nowshera, in partnership with SOLIDAR. Through this intervention we strived to provide equitable, easy and free access to education services for the newly returned Afghan refugees who continue to reside in transitional refugee settlements. Our key strategy focused on developing and strengthening strategic partnerships with critical stakeholders and capitalizing on innovative practices such as accelerated learning programmes to reach out-of-school children, especially girls.
We also focused on supporting the identified/selected beneficiary groups by implementing activities necessary to improve the well-being of vulnerable women and children. These activities included mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), protection of women and children from gender-based violence (GBV), abuse and exploitative behaviours, along with hygiene and primary healthcare.
Our project organized and built the capacity of Women Support Groups (WSGs). These groups included educated girls/women and Lady Health Workers (LHWs) from amongst the beneficiary community, and helped respective refugee communities — particularly at-risk women and children — in accessing protection, health and well-being services. Each WSG comprised 10 members with one chair and one vice-chairperson. Linkages of the Women Support Groups were established with the Commissioner Afghan Refugee office to act as a platform for resolution of protection-specific issues, alongside a detailed capacity building campaign for these groups.
The Afghan Refugees were also supported with food and non-food items including hygiene, dignity, kitchen-ware and winterization kits. These kits sufficiently catered for the nutrition and health hygiene needs of a family of 10 individuals for a period of 40 days, as per our post-distribution monitoring exercise. A total of 3,895 households were facilitated over the project lifetime.
SPADO established 8 non-formal education centers in rented community buildings near or within the refugee settlements to provide a more accessible platform for basic education, supporting 432 children through these centers. The centers operated with a child-friendly-spaces approach involving fun-based learning activities, and also provided nutritious diets to enrolled children to safeguard their physical and mental development. 14 Afghan Refugee girls were hired as NFE facilitators for these centers and were formally trained, with the technical support of JICA, on teaching methodology and session delivery for the non-formal curriculum developed by JICA-Pakistan.
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