The main focus of AWSDC is to raise public awareness on women’s rights attributed by Islam and women’s access to justice, advocacy for protection and prevention of women’s human rights and rehabilitation of women’s survivors of violence through their capacity building. AWSDC believes the implementation of women’s human rights attributed by Islam, guaranteed by the statutory laws and International Human Rights treaties and other mechanisms are critical in the realization of women’s equality. In fact, AWSDC’s program is premised on the belief therefore that, women’s rights should be practically observed so that women and girls could feel equally empowered with men in the Afghan society.

• To protect women, survivors of violence and their dependent children AWSDC has been running the Women Protection Center (first shelter in Afghanistan) for women and children’s victims of violence since April 2003 where a large number of women and girls are supported through different service packages. At present AWSDC only runs Kabul WPC which is supporting by UN Women and in 2013 till 2017 AWSDC has ran WPC in Parwan, Baghlan and Bamiyan province.
• In response to the increased level of violence and restriction of women and girls access to the services, AWSDC is currently implementing Women Protection project with UNHCR funds in Balkh while the same package will be extended in north region and south region of Afghanistan in 2023
• Community peace building with equal participation of men and women, advocacy for women’s human rights through awareness. Recently through Social Cohesion project funded by UNDP, fifteen gender inclusive social cohesion Shuras has been established in promoting social cohesion, prevention of conflicts and addressing community driven conflicts where women have the decision-making role.
• Another major core program of Advocacy for Women Rights assisted by Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) has been started to address Women Rights issues in a broader perspective by involving all the stakeholders with special focus on social and religious entities. The program was started in Kabul and replicated in Parwan and Faryab. It is worthwhile to be mentioned here that AWSDC is a pioneer organization that made a film (last night last verse) based on a real story of honor killing and documentaries on harmful practice of (Bud) where girls are given in exchange for settling disputes and Nanawatay (pray-full request). The advocacy is being done on strong arguments with valuable intellectual support on the issue of violence against women and the experience from other Islamic states in the region like Malaysia and Pakistan.
• To contribute to its main purpose of women’s empowerment and address Women Human Right at macro level and to promote and protect the rights guaranteed by the constitution of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, a project (legislative watch) was initiated to repeal the discriminatory patterns of laws and do advocacy for the implementation of women friendly laws. To sustain these efforts, Women’s Human Rights Defense Committees are formed at local, district and provincial levels. To get strong backup support of religious entities an exposure visit was also made to Malaysia where the religious clergy has extended valuable support to women’s friendly legislation.
• To combat women and child trafficking, capacity building of partner organizations on Women and Peace, training of police on “How to deal with women and girls, victims of violence” and establishment of a functional referral system are also AWSDC’s projects contributing to its main purpose of women’s empowerment and ensuring their rights through preventive and protective measures.
• To support women victims of sexual violence in Afghanistan is another program started in partnership with law enforcement agencies i.e., police and attorney general, defense lawyers and medicinal jurisprudence department. Capacity building workshops and conferences are conducted in Kabul, Herat, Balkh and Kapisa province to support Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) for prevention and elimination of sexual violence. A good number of religious scholars, university students from different departments and activists from Civil Society Organization participated.
• Community Pace building is another need-based program where peace shuras with equal participation of women and men were formed for conflict resolution at the local level in their respective realms. For sustaining their activities these peace shuras were granted with small amounts as revolving funds
• A three days conference was conducted in March 5-7 in Kabul. the conference theme was “Prevention and elimination of sexual violence from religious point of view” where a large number of religious clergy, representatives from Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs, Ministry Of Interior, Ministry of Law and Justice, Ministry of Health, Ministry of economy and Attorney general Dr. Ashraf Ghani, the President and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the Chief Executive, participated.

AWSDC has been engaged in peacebuilding activities with key focus on establishing and strengthening community based peacebuilding conflict resolution counsel(Shura), providing the Shura members with key peacebuilding and conflict management training, provision of experience sharing through exposure visits between provinces and districts, facilitation of dialogues between conflicting parties to address their grievances and to facilitate social cohesion, advocacy for women inclusions in community, district and provincial level women inclusion in the peacebuilding structures. Building the capacity of religious actors and community elders in combating violent extremism through organizing sessions with youth during Friday prayers, community gathering so that the youth can take active role in community development, support them through development and humanitarian support, life skills training etc. In addition to this in response to the current humanitarian crises and take over by IEA, AWSDC has boosted its Social Cohesion interventions to bring communities, people, and tribes from different ethnic groups to work in peace through promoting social cohesion. AWSDC mobilizes youth, community elders, religious actors and women to initial train and empower them and then they can promote social cohesion among their communities to proactively prevent the emergence of conflicts. Through multi-stakeholders platforms it has managed to receive community grievances and to take it up with relevant authorities and service providers to address their conflicts, humanitarian and development deficits. Presently AWSDC has been engaged in communities in Faryab, Samangan, Saripul Herat and one district of Kabul in social cohesion types of interventions with the generous support of NCA, ICAN and UNDP.

AWSDC has been engaged in GBV activities since many years, but as of 2020 AWSDC have started its specific interventions in Kunduz province in response to the situational assessment conducted through UNOCHA partners in 2019-2020. The key focus has been both in response as well on prevention of GBV cases. AWSDC on annual bases targeted 7500 GBV vulnerable women and girls in Kunduz. The activities include establishing community-based protection committees, provision of training to religious and community elders and representative to combat and prevent GBV cases, conducting campaign at district and community level to inform communities on women and girls rights and how to report and combat and prevent GBV. In addition to this we have one mobile and one static team to provide MHPSS/PSS through individual and group counselling, identification of
GBV case and refer to them to relevant service providers through established referral pathways. As part of the response plan, we are providing vulnerable women and girls with dignity kits, WASH kits, NFIs and Multi-purpose cash support. Women who are in need of other supports are referred to other service providers such as to health facilities, economic opportunities, legal support to process the cases, etc. In 2022 as part of long-term partnership with UNHCR, AWSDC has running/managing two women community centers in Balkh provinces to provide PSS and refer GBV cases with service providers. The same intervention has been scaled up in neighboring provinces such as in Kunduz, Samangan in north, Bamyan in Central highland and Kandahar in South region and Paktya in South East Region. AWSDC in 2023 in addition to Balkh, extended the Women Protection interventions in Bamyan, Kunduz, Kandahar and Paktya provinces. In response to the limitation of women access to services and where the participation of women and girls has been shrinking after the takeover of August 2021, AWSDC in joint partnership of NCA has provided gender mainstreaming training and resources to national NGOs to build their capacity for inclusive service provision and engaging women in the project planning, implementation and monitoring. In addition to the training a gender from Islamic perspective guideline has been developed which to a greater extend will assist national NGOs to safely include women and girls in all humanitarian and development interventions in Afghanistan.

AWSDC through generous financial and technical support of UNHCR has initiated Child Protection
project with the key component of improving AWSDC and UNHCR partners capacity on core child
protection principles, PFA and case management, provision of community awareness of CP
principles, establish and strengthen Child Protection Advocacy Network (CPAN), Child Case
Management and provision of PSS in the schools and community. In view of deteriorated situation
and economic shocks in the country child protection cases are in rise, thus AWSDC scaled up its
support in other provinces of Afghanistan such as in Bamyan. AWSDC has scaled up its CP activities
to other provinces such as in Bamyan provinces. AWSDC is in the discussion with potential donor to
cover more provinces with high needs and vulnerabilities.

AWSDC’s humanitarian aid program provides needs-based aid to people affected by natural or
manmade disasters. Our aims are twofold: to save lives and to strengthen communities in coping with
future crises. We operate in the most fragile contexts and we work to link relief to development.
People affected by disasters often show incredible resilience. That is why we believe it is essential to
involve them in our humanitarian programs. In 2020 alone, almost 61,621 people received aid through
AWSDC’s interventions. AWSDC in response to humanitarian crises after the takeover of
Afghanistan in August 2021, provided humanitarian response through provision of WASH, Food,
NFI, Dignity kits, to the affected people in Faryab and Kunduz Provinces. Similarly AWSDC in
response to the recent earthquake in east-south region provided food and dignity kit packages to the
affected population. AWSDC as strategic emergency response and preparedness partner of
Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) has the right capacity to deliver humanitarian assistance with focus
on WASH, NFI, Shelter, Food and Multi-purpose cash distribution. AWSDC key donors for
Humanitarian response are NCA, ICAN in Afghanistan. Our proven experience in the sector has been
in Kabul, Faryab, Kunduz and Khost Provinces of Afghanistan.

• OUR HUMANITARIAN SECTORS
• Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)
• Shelter and Settlement
• Food Security and Livelihood
• Multi- Purpose Cash Programming
• Cash Based Intervention (CBI)
• Women Protection (GBV, MHPSS, PSS and Trauma Centers)
• Child Protection in Emergency
• Humanitarian Response with focus on WASH, GVB and Livelihoods key figures
• Provided WASH, GBV, COVID-19 awareness and services to 54,171 individuals in Kabul city
• WASH services through rehabilitation of well/hand pump, hygiene promotion and distribution of hygiene kits to 26,219 individuals (Kunduz)
• In response to GBV distribution of dignity kit to 2252 girls and reproductive women (Kunduz)
• To the prevent and outbreak of COVID-19 in Kabul, the project through public awareness, distribution of and installation of hand washing facilities, distribution of hand wash soaps to 25,700 men, women and children
• In response to drought, COVID-19 and IDPs provided GBV/WASH services to 5000 (765
  Girls, 612 Boys, 1785 Men and 1838 Women) in Kunduz Province through integrated approach with WASH, GBV / health
• Provision of Food items to vulnerable women in Kabul (200 women funded by UAE foundation, Equality Fund and ICAN)
• Distribution of multipurpose cash to women and girls in Kabul (2500 women and girls)
• Provision of NFIs and WASH and Dignity Kits to 1000 vulnerable IDPs, host communities (2000 beneficiaries in Kabul and Kunduz Provinces)
• Provision of Food and Livelihood to recent humanitarian crises affected communities in Faryab (40 food packages and 40 tailoring skills)
• Provision of Humanitarian Assistance to recent crises in Kunduz through provision of combine WASH and Cash Distribution to 7500 individuals in Kunduz and Imam Sahib district.
• Provision of food and dignity packages to 100 women affected by earthquake in Khostm province.
• Provision of food and multipurpose cash to 200 women affected by drought in Faryab provinces
• Total Grant contributed by Donors: USD 900,000. (ICAN, Equality Fund, NCA, UAE Foundation)
• OUR EXPERTISE
• Triple Nexus – Linking Peace & Relief to Development
• Resilient recovery
• Community driven and participatory
• Integrated approach covering our sectors
• Localization: Hiring and using local resource, where necessary capacity strengthening
• Disaster preparedness Disaster preparedness
• Returnee/IDP Support
• Women and Child Protection services
• Medium to large Stock management
• Medium to large scale procurement of Food/ES-NFIs
• OUR QUALITY APPROACH & ACCOUNTABILITY
• Community of experts for Cash Based Interventions
• Protection mainstreaming in all our programs
• SPHERE Standards and CHS Principles
• Stronger Programme and Operation Team
• In our programming, we do implement the IASC Gender Handbook and Gender Marker
• Do No Harm Principle & Right Based Approach
• SOP on Humanitarian Response