Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees (CAR KP)
Connecting Refugees, Bringing Positive Change in Their Lives
The mandate of Commissionerate Afghan Refugees KP is currently further extended beyond camps to refugee’s concentrated urban areas in KP. For this purpose, the Urban Refugees Support Unit has been established in the main office of Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees for serving refugees living in urban and semi urban areas in KP. Dedicated Help Desks with focal persons are deputed in Commissionerate Afghan Refugees main office Peshawar who are providing assistance and facilitation to Urban Refugees in health, education, protection and voluntary repatriation. It is also assisting Urban Refugees to create linkages with public service providers including creating opportunities for their livelihood. Currently the following Help Desks are fully functional for facilitating urban refugees.
For this purpose, a Toll-Free Help Line (091) 111 666 227 is fully functional and any urban refugee requires facilitation can call on the number or can visit the main office of Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees, Hayatabad, Peshawar KP for facilitation of access to public sector services in KP.
Education Desk:
Education as a human right is an essential component of Urban Refugees Support Unit and the following activities are undertaken by the desk.
• Coordination/linkages with relevant stakeholders to connect school age children for enrolment and provide facilitation in case ARs face any challenges in education related services in education department
• Strengthening the process of facilitating Afghan students for document attestation
• Awareness raising about importance of education and specially for girl children
Health Desk:
Health is an important theme when it comes to provide facilitation to urban refugees particular the extremely vulnerable individual, children, pregnant and lactating women, and people with special needs and elderly. The following tasks are currently undertaken for the urban refugees within health domain:
• Coordinate with health facilities and authorities beforehand so that patient is treated without delay
• Provide counseling to the patients and refer them to their nearest facility
• Coordination with local health authorities for any unforeseen situation
• Desk officer is facilitating the access of urban refugees to health facilitating centers, BHUs, DHQs etc. and DHOs at tehsil level.
• Facilitating Vaccination campaigns and connected with urban refugees.
Livelihood Desk:
Livelihood is an essential component of assisting refugee population to ensure that they do not face food security crises at household level. For this purpose,
• Overall livelihood context, including opportunities for livelihood, available skills within refugee communities for planning towards effective livelihood options assess at district level.
• Coordination with, linking and referring capacitated refugees to public and private organizations to create opportunities within various capacity building institutions and industries
• Planning of and execution of skill development programs for Afghan youth
• Support local labor market through establishing network of service providers and Afghan labor
• Ensuring that refugees are not discriminated in market
Protection Desk
The protection desk is serving to report any issue related to the broader protection theme.
• Provide preliminary protection services to the affected person / family on priority.
• Report to and coordinate with legal cell
• Coordination with local administration towards providing comprehensive protection
• Sharing the SGBV cases with the concerned sector / stakeholders
• Provide complete confidentiality to the affected family / individual
• Coordination with community to avoid any such future incidence
The above Desks officers are facilitating the Urban Refugees to improve and facilitate their access to Social Services during their stay in Pakistan, peaceful co-existence and social cohesion between Afghan Refugees and Host community, improving socio-economic status by creating livelihood opportunities for Afghan Refugees and Supporting dignified Voluntary Repatriation of Afghan Refugees to the country of the origin.
