Background:
Several factors contribute to the extremely low levels of health and income in Takhar and Badakhshan Provinces in Northeast, Afghanistan. Unsafe drinking water and poor knowledge of basic hygiene contribute to illness and unnecessary medical expenses, for example almost all of Badakhshan mothers do not wash their hands with water or soap after their own or their child’s defecation.
Furthermore, villages there are often only accessible by small pathways and roads in very poor condition, means not only that access to health care is limited, but also that there is little chance for market access.
The combination of a low agricultural base,  low quantity and nutritional quality of food received, bad health often due to bad personal hygiene and lack of earning opportunities has always meant that many families in those rural settings struggle to survive. This is a situation that Mission East is trying to address.

Action:
- Mission East is helping the communities to build or rehabilitate around 40 community drinking water systems across both provinces
- ensuring that also 60 villages have adequate sanitation facilities (latrines throughout and hand washing facilities in schools and clinics)-
- conducting hygiene training workshops for all households in the project areas (targeting men and women separately so the messages are reinforced at home). The same household will then received a “Health Kit” composed of water collecting vessels, soap and mosquito net.
- Some 2400 Households will also be involved in kitchen garden projects and some animal husbandry (beekeeping) projects.
- Furthermore Mission East will build a new road to the Mandara Valley, an isolated region of Takhar Province with 18,500 inhabitants.
- The road that will be build will be by pay laborers from the project villages thus ensuring some much needed revenues.

Project Aims:
Contribute to sustainable improvement in the health and wellbeing of the target regions.

Major Donor: Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Project Code: AFG-SHUM-007
Location: Badakhshan and Takhar Provinces, Northeast Afghanistan