Background information:
Organization for People’s Health in Action (OPHA) is a non-profit seeking, non-governmental NGO established on 14/10 /2017 (1396/07/22) in Afghanistan. OPHA is dedicated to saving the lives and relieving the sufferings through capacity building of health system cadres, emergency management, and developmental programs in the country. OPHA activities are focusing on providing health assistance, health programs, and social development to vulnerable communities in Afghanistan. OPHA is founded by a team of experienced public health specialists and trainers with technical and managerial experience in national and international organizations for many years.
The organization is officially registered with the ministry of the economy with registration ID # 4280
The organization has dedicated professionals with a passion to make quality health care in Afghanistan accessible to vulnerable strata. The senior management team has developed and earned an in-depth knowledge of health care needs, expertise in the delivery of health care services, and participated in the improvement of the health sector in Afghanistan through the implementation of BPHS and EPHS and many other relevant vertical projects.
Mission and vision of the organization:
- The overall objective/ vision of the organization is to ‘’change dreams into actions toward healthy people and healthy community ’’.
- The mission of the organization is’’ to enable the people to attain the equal rights to health care, protection, social development, and participation’’
The strategic direction of the organization is set up in four dimensions:
- Health and Nutrition
- Youth and women empowerment.
- Social and Community development.
- Research and education.
The organization is governed/managed through different layers of governance in the following manner; OPHA has one general assembly at the top level which is the leading top governance body of the organization and mainly responsible to:
- Hearing the overall operational activities (Technical and financial) of the organization on annual basis.
- Approving the budget and annual plan of the organization.
- Requesting the hiring and firing of Director General, and its two deputies to trustee board.
Subsequent to this body is a board of trustees comprised of volunteer and dedicated members with different educational and experience backgrounds. Their tenure and responsibilities are bound to its ToR. The senior board of management is the third layer in the governance hierarchy of the organization and includes the general director and its technical and financial deputies. Its jurisdiction is the daily management of the organization, networking, and fundraising, and organization development activities. The main office’s in charge of different departments meet weekly to expedite effective management and financial control of the organization as the organization is now in its implementation and later on, the meetings will be geared twice per month and finally once per month.OPHA has been an extremely effective catalyst in developmental and health activities in the country through active contribution in the different forums of MoPH and UN agencies as well as local communities.
OPHA is following a strong coordination mechanism both at the national, subnational, and global level which is summarized as below:
- At the provincial level: OPHA is actively attending the provincial coordination committee meetings like the Provincial Public Health Coordination Committee (PHCC), which is a formal multi-stakeholder committee at the provincial level with a set of distinct responsibilities.
OPHA coordinates and participates in all stages of the emergency response. we also monitor and supervise health posts and health facilities.
- At the central level and National level.
1.2. OPHA regularly attends all monthly AHF/HFU meetings organized by OCHA and ACBAR.
2.2. OPHA regularly attend virtually and physically in all monthly Nutrition cluster meetings
3.2. OPHA is also a member of Health cluster and regularly attend all monthly meeting scheduled by health cluster.
4.2. OPHA is an active member of the Afghanistan Cash and Voucher Working Group (CVWG) /CVA and regularly attends all virtual and physical monthly meetings.
5,2, OPHA is an active member of the Afghanistan Scaling Up Nutrition (AFSUN) Network.
6.2. OPHA is an active member of the Gender in Humanitarian Action COVID-19 Working Group (GiHAC) and regularly attend all scheduled meetings by UN-Women.
7.2. OPHA is an active member of the Afghanistan GFF technical working group.
8.2. OPHA is registered in NGO safety and security network “INSO
- At the Global level
1.3. OPHA has the honor of membership in the steering committee of the Global Civil Society Coordination Group for GFF which is based in Washington DC and is currently chaired by WHO.
2.3. OPHA has applied for membership in Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA) which is in progress.
Working principles: OPHA is working based on the following working principles.
- Independency: This organization is committed to following the accepted norms of the country and the rules and regulations of non-governmental organizations.
- Being non-political: This organization is not affiliated with any political party or organization and does not participate in any kind of political activity.
- Justice: OPHA is against any kind of ethnic, tribal, linguistic, sexual, and regional discrimination.
- Professionalism: This organization performs all management procedures based on professional standards.
- Transparency and accountability: Transparency and accountability are strictly taken into account during all activities.
Policies and manuals: OPHA: Though OPHA is a very young NGO, all its operations and activities are adopted based on the below manuals and guidelines.
- Accountability for affected Population Policy.
- Access policy.
- Security Policy.
- Program Planning and Development Policy.
- Anti-fraud and corruption policy.
- Child protection policy.
- Conflict of Interest policy
- Financial policy.
- Gender Policy.
- Human Resource Policy.
- Logistic and procurement policy.
- Monitoring policy
- Risk Management policy
- Organization Development and change policy
- Preventing terrorist financing policy
- Training policy
- Whistle –Blowing Policy
- Governance Policy.
OPHA Working experience:
- OPHA is a very young and newly established organization, but the founders, management staff of the organization has tremendous experience in leadership, management, and capacity building with national and international organizations, these experiences will be fully utilized in building the capacity of BPHS and EPHS HFs staff. OPHA is responsible for capacity building and professional development of Logar’s entire BPHS and EPHS staff. (1676 BPHS / EPHS staff). OPHA has 22 management staff ( 9 staff in HQ, 13 Staff in FO, and 395 Community Health Workers (CHW) and currently managing Lodin District Hospital, OPHA completed 24 Months of the training program of Community Midwifery Education (CME), and Community Health Nursing Education (CHNE) programs in Logar province. A total of 24 community midwives and 24 community nurses successfully graduated from these programs. OPHA is also running a total of 232 Health Posts in all seven districts of Logar province.OPHA is an active contributing member of health and nutrition clusters. The leadership of the organization has a high-level academic experience to the level of a master’s degree in the community development program. In addition to that, 15 years of leadership and management expertise of the leading member of the organization is to be overemphasized.
- OPHA started the implementation of Twinning program phase-2 as NNGO after signing the triple MoU with ACBAR as mentor and SAF as Adviser of the program. The program has started in Nov 2019 and will be ended by the end of Nov 2020. The Twinning Program aims to address this by pairing NNGOs with Advisors that provide mentoring and guidance to their Afghan counterparts on institutional management, humanitarian practices, and strategy. The beneficiary of this project is the OPHA organization.
- OPHA has the honor of implementing the Afghanistan COVID-19 emergency response and health preparedness project in Logar province through a partnership with CAF. The project is started in Jun 2020and will be ended by end of Nov 2020. The project is funded by the world bank. The overall objectives of the project are to protect our citizens from the spread of COVID-19, to respond and mitigate the threat posed by COVID-19 in Logar province, and to strengthen national health systems preparedness and capacity to respond to public health emergencies. One of the aims of this project is to avoid disruption of BPHS/EPHS service delivery under the Sehatmandi project. Total beneficiaries of the project are 430,917 people
- OPHA has implemented the Whole of Afghanistan Multi-sectorial need assessment (MSNA) 2020 project in Logar province through a partnership with the ACTED organization. The project started on Aug 2020 and has been ended on the 15th of Sep 2020. The general objectives of this project are to Inform multi-cluster humanitarian programming for the Afghanistan response by identifying inter-sectoral needs and how they inter-relate across different geographic locations and population groups outlined in the Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO). Findings from the first assessment will then inform the 2020 HNO, and support the updating of the 2018-2021 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for 2021. WoAAs 2018 – 2023 ultimately aims to capture trends of inter-sectoral/sectoral needs within and across vulnerable populations.
