| UNODC Funded Project |
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Title of the Project: Awareness Rising on Psychosocial Issues and Psychosocial Counseling for Female Prisons Staff in Four Provinces of Afghanistan (Developing Post-Release Opportunities for Women and Girl Prisoners Extension to the provinces) Funded by: UNODC Implementing Agency: HOSA (Humanitarian Organization Supporting Afghans) Location: Kabul, Herat, Kunduz and Takhar Project Duration: 2 months (01/11/2008-31/12/2008) Project Long Term Objectives: To provide and promote social and psychological support to female prisoners through training of selected female prisons staff in psycho-social issues and services. Project Immediate Objectives: Improve the psychological condition of detained women and girls in order to facilitate their social reintegration upon release. Project Implementation Strategy: HOSA implemented the program in two phases in order to have more structured approach to lead the efforts toward the mentioned objectives: The first phase mainly included contacting relevant stakeholders in Kabul and other provinces, identifying/nominating trainings’ participants, logistical preparation such as booking the venue for the training, transportation arrangement of the participants, modifying and adapting the existing training materials considering the needs of the trainees, etc. The 2nd phase mainly included conducting the trainings for the female prisons staff in the planned provinces. Project Activities: 1. A project planning was developed in order to have a detailed activities planning with assignment of date and persons responsible for each specific task. 2. Coordination with UNODC and CPD at central level: Meetings conducted with Head of CPD, and his team in order to brief them about the objectives and activities of the project and to attract their support in conducting the trainings. 3. Developing the training manual considering the needs of the trainees: Parallel to the above mentioned activities, the HOSA training team modified and further developed the training manual considering the needs of female prisons staff in order to conduct a helpful and culturally sensitive training. A facilitator guide, pre and post test questionnaire and detailed training’s timetable have been developed as well. 4. Coordination with provincial authorities: a) Local coordination with provincial offices of prison department and UNODC in order to facilitate the implementation of training courses at the target provinces and be coming sure of their support. b) Identifying and booking training venues. c) Collecting lists of the training participants from provincial prison departments and in close cooperation with provincial UNODC offices. 5. Conducting the Trainings: The six-day trainings for female prisons staff of Herat, Kabul, Kunduz and Takhar provinces are conducted according to the made project planning. The training in Herat province has been conducted from November 22nd till November 27th (Six full-days, from 09:00am to 04:00pm). In total 5 female and 2 male prisons staffs have been trained. The training in Kabul province has been conducted from November 29th till December 4th (Six full-days, from 09:00am to 04:00pm). In total 18 female and 9 male prisons staffs have been trained. The training in Kunduz province has been conducted from December 13th till December 18th (Six full-days, from 09:00am to 04:00pm). In total 3 female and 7 male prisons staffs have been trained. Output: emale prison staffs complete the awareness raising training on psychosocial issues and services. The training was not only useful helping the participants to deal better with their job responsibilities and to support the detained women but at the same time was really useful helping them to deal with many stressful situations they are routinely faced in their private life. A pre and post evaluation was done before starting the trainings and after completion of the trainings in order to find how much the contents of the training are understood by the participants. The following chart puts side by side the result of pre and post test analysis. As it is easily seen in the below chart, the knowledge of the participants regarding the contents of the training was low before the training and increased up to 83% after conducting the trainings which shows the success of the project implemented.  As it is easily seen in the above chart, the knowledge of the participants regarding the contents of the training was low before the training and increased up to 83% after conducting the trainings which shows the success of the project implemented. Main challenges: 1. Low literacy level of the participants (even some of them were totally illiterate) which made the implementation of the training challenging since they were not able to catch the points easily and were in need of a lot of explanation in order to understand the points (time-consuming). 2. Low number of the participants in Herat and Kunduz+Takhar training, as a consequence there were not enough participants to be divided in groups in order to make proper group works. The main lessons which we have learned from the trainings: 1. Since majority of the participants were suffering from psychosocial problems, it would have been good if this opportunity could have been used to help the participants with their problems. For this purpose, it would be better if a minimum of 2 hours per training day could be allocated for the self-experience exercises which can help the participants to get rid of their own psychological pressures. 2. Some topics such as victimization, trauma and violence really touched the participants and it shows again that the majority of participants are suffering from the mentioned problems which emphasis on conducting follow up trainings in order to provide the participants with more support. |
