Nad Ali man donates land for community health facility

KABUL (Pajhwok): A man in southern Helmand province had donated his land for the construction of a Family Health House (FHH).

The FHH would provide access to a birthing facility and other health services for the local community, the ReliefWeb reported on Sunday.

Haji Zaman Shah, who donated a parcel of his land, was quoted as saying: “We have lived in this village for a long time. We work in the fields nearby…”

When UNFPA expanded its FHH programme to Helmand in 2022, its NGO partner BARAN coordinated with local communities to find the best locations for FHHs and the land to build them on.

The FHHs are community-based health facilities initiated by UNFPA to provide access to reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health care for people in remote areas of Afghanistan.

The FHH is the model developed by UNFPA and supported by STFA in collaboration with IOM and UNDP.

Zaman also allowed one of his daughters, interested in becoming a midwife, to enroll in the Community Midwifery Education (CME) programme, which trains midwives for two years to serve in FHHs.

In Afghanistan, which has the highest maternal mortality ratio in Asia and the Pacific region, a woman dies every two hours from preventable pregnancy or childbirth complications.

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