Help Women And Children (WCO) is a local NGO registered with ministry of Planning and National Development, and in accordance with Somaliland NGO law No 43/210, as a non- political, non- profit making, non- government organization engaged in the humanitarian and Development of Somaliland. WCO is operating as non-profit basis with principles and philosophy aimed at effective and sustainable community transformation. A group of former UN and International NGO workers with a similar vision and passion saw the need to dedicate themselves to supporting underprivileged local Somaliland communities to help them achieve social and economic development. The organization was registered in Oct 2022 with the Ministry of Planning with the registration number L43.13.1564/2024. and has a fundraising office in the USA, UK and Denmark. WCO is working in whole of Somaliland and priority has been given to the Most venerable communities in hard-to-reach areas. So, far the following key interventions has been made as well as planned to help our communities with its community and donor contribution. I. Reducing the impact of disasters by building resilience through sustainable livelihood platforms, extending support to the livestock sector and economic empowerment for improved livelihoods, and providing water for improved livelihoods and healthy communities. II. Increasing food accessibility and sustainable production infrastructure in drought-stricken communities. III. Increasing food accessibility and sustainable production infrastructure in drought stricken Agro-pastoral communities. IV. Building sustainable WASH infrastructures for improved livelihoods and healthy and protection services to the communities. V. Building resilience and inclusivity in economic empowerment for women and youth. VI. Transforming conflict through the provision of quality education for children and youth, community civic empowerment to promote governance, women’s and children’s rights and access to justice. Help Women and Children works with local communities and their organizations to ensure that vulnerable and poverty -stricken people in Somaliland, particularly the pastoral and Agro-pastoral communities, can enjoy peace, quality in living conditions, and sustainable development. This is done by among others supporting these communities to actively participate in and influence socio-economic and political processes that benefit them. WCO believes that peaceful coexistence among communities is a critical prerequisite for any sustainable development. The main drive of WCO is to promote and improve the livelihood systems, quality of life, and status of vulnerable and poverty-stricken people in the Somaliland, through the facilitation of sustainable community peace, humanitarian, and development initiatives. Help Women and Children has been and will be actively engaged in sectors such as Education, Health (Mother and child health), Nutrition, Water Sanitation and Hygiene, Agriculture, Livestock Development, Peacebuilding, Child protection and Advocacy, shelter and NFIs, food security and livelihood. WCO has strong collaborations with other development agencies working in its operational areas to ensure shared learning, collaboration, and synergy. The organization is governed by experienced, active, and strong board members who have been selected based on integrity, willingness to render voluntary services, professional experience regarding the management of development and humanitarian entities, expertise in resource mobilization, contacts at the national, regional and international level while considering diversity in gender, geographical l, community (clan) and special interest group representation. Major milestones have been accomplished and continuous successful transformation achieved in the target communities in Somaliland through the unwavering support and partnership of both international and local partners. I. Funding agencies – Help Women and children has no specific funding agencies but using its funding comes from communities, its members and individual donors II. Participates in Somaliland agencies coordination meetings III. Partners with Somaliland technical Ministries of Water, IDP, Education, Health, Women and Children, and Agriculture.

Source of Funding	Project Title	Project Period	Remarks
Individual donor	Emergency water trucking	December 2022 - March 2023	Completed
Community participation	Enhancing Women’s Capacity to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence through Sports	January 2023 - June 2023	Completed
Individual donor	Women Empowerment Through Skills Training Towards Economic Support and Self-Reliance	June - July 2023	Completed
Community participation	Increasing school enrollments through providing scholastic materials	August - September 2023	Completed
Community participation	Feed your brother/sister who has no food to eat for their iftar	March 2024	Plan
Community participation	Buy for Eid gifts for young boys and girls who can’t afford to buy	April 2024	Plan

3.1 Identity Statement Help Women and Children Organization (WCO) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization founded in 2020 and operating in Somaliland. It seeks to build resilience and improve the quality of life by empowering communities in the Somaliland through sustainable development initiatives. 3.2 Vision Empowering Women and Children: The organization envisions a world where women and children have equal opportunities, rights, and access to resources. It aims to empower them to reach their full potential and lead fulfilling lives. 3.3 Mission To promote women and children empowerment where all women and children have equal opportunities, rights, and access to resources. 3.4 Core Values Accountability and Transparency- WCO shall be open and answerable in all her dealings and operations to her stakeholders. Inclusivity - WCO shall conduct all affairs free from bias or injustice and seek to accommodate diverse stakeholders. WCO will be non-partisan in its approach. Efficiency - Resources available to WCO including time, effort, or cost will be well used to advance the mission of the organization. Independence and neutrality – WCO will conduct all affairs in a nonpartisan atmosphere, shall not take political sides, and will serve beneficiaries and communities equally. Integrity - Staff shall conduct their dealings with each other and with others with integrity to foster mutual trust. Professionalism - The employees of WCO shall strive to uphold good principles, laws, ethics, and conventions while working with the beneficiaries and other stakeholders. 4.0 Community Engagement WCO works closely with local authorities and beneficiary communities. WCO uses the right-based approach to development which is designed to support right holders to claim their inviolable rights while also working with the duty bearers to meet their obligations. WCO empowers and works through community -level structures such as traditional and clan elders' women and youth groups, farmers' cooperatives, community education committees, water resource management and water users’ committees, public health teams, and disaster risk reduction committees among others. Using participatory approaches WCO designs programs based on communities' short, medium and long-term needs while ensuring the sustainability and value for money of the projects. WCO is working for refuges, IDPs as well as the host communities including but limited to Women, Children, People with Disabilities (PWD), people with chronic illness, homeless kids Building on the previous strategic plan, this strategic plan has a strong and consistent theme of justice, and that sustainable peace and development can never be realized without justice. As indicated by the revised mission, vision, core values, and the theory of change of the organization, WCO will seek to intervene by promoting socioeconomic, environmental, and political justice within the target communities, with emphasis on the issue of climate change. WCO has registered a great impact in Mandera County, and it now intends to grow its program to cover other ASAL counties. In this strategic period, WCO will spread its interventions to cover all of Somaliland zones.

APAD Pillars (2022-2026)	Sectors
Social Justice	WASH
	EDUCATION
	HEALTH
	PEACE BUILDING
	WOMEN AND CHILDREN EMPOWERMENT
Economic resilience	Food security
	Economic empowerment
	Nutrition
climate change Climate Change	Adaptive capacity to climate change
	Natural resource management (NRM)
	Emergency response
	Operational efficiency
	Strengthening of WCO Institutional Capacity

WCO believes that for interventions to change the lives of the vulnerable communities in the target areas of Somaliland, there ought to be a paradigm shift in the sense of filling the gap between humanitarian assistance and development through community ownership as well as their dealings with the governance structures. For people to have this ownership and be able to challenge the status quo in governance, they must have information concerning their rights, as well as their responsibilities as citizens, which in turn will strengthen them to ask pertinent questions and demand services from the duty bearers, especially the government. Whereas WCO recognizes the importance of life-saving emergency response in cases of disaster and calamity, the organization also acknowledges the lack of sustainability of emergency response and the need to move towards more sustainable initiatives, based on local coping mechanisms, which can help the affected communities prevent recurrence or make them better prepared for such. WCO will, therefore, in a conflict-sensitive and development-oriented mode, adopt a two-pronged approach to respond to such emergencies as it also helps build the capacities of communities towards better preparedness. The role of education in dealing with various community problems will be emphasized in the next 5 years. Keeping children in school will keep them from extremism, prevent early marriages, reduce the apathy among the youth borne to rampant unemployment and generally deal with a lot of other societal issues developmentally. School is also considered an important controlled atmosphere for social engineering and reengineering. In doing all this, WCO believes that the community must be at the Centre of all its work and initiatives to capture the needs, create ownership and mobilize community resources to also contribute to the solutions proposed for these challenges. These interventions developed through community participation should be able to sustain after the end of the project cycle.

Objective/ Expected Impact	Outcome/Intermediate Result	Outputs / Immediate Results	Interventions (Indicative Activities)
To improve public health through the promotion of hygiene and enhance access to clean and safe water and decent sanitation for the communities	Enhanced health within the target communities Adherence to the public health protocols in the target communities	Communities have access to clean water for household use Better management of water infrastructure Lowered incidences of hygiene-linked sickness in target communities	Improve water and sanitation infrastructure Enhance water conservation (training of water mgmt. committee) Promote good hygiene and sanitation practices (Community-led total sanitation (CLTS) and Securing water sources)
To improve access to quality education and enhance economic empowerment among youth in the targeted communities	Improved retention rates and transition rates in schools especially among girls Enhanced economic empowerment among youth in the targeted communities	Increased gender sensitivity in schools in the targeted areas Notable attitude change towards girl child education More youth gaining skills for work in the target communities	Mentorship of out-of-school children and youth Improving the learning/teaching environment in schools Support youth to gain technical skills Promote and create awareness of girl child education
To enhance peaceful coexistence among and within communities in Somaliland	Reduced conflicts within and among targeted communities in Somaliland Increased awareness of right and civic duties in the targeted areas of Somaliland Increased conflict ADR capacity within the target communities	Promotion of civic education Promotion of access to justice Advocacy to address human rights issues Support for peace initiatives among communities
To improve livelihood sources and secure household food security in Somaliland	Increase in disposable income in families.	Increased earnings for farmers Diversification of income sources for target beneficiaries	Increase crop production through the development of an Irrigation scheme Rehabilitation of productive assets Promote agribusiness
To empower vulnerable communities to adapt to climate change	Increased community understanding and adaptation to climate change presentations in the target areas.	A better understanding of Climate change presentations in the community Communities adopt climate-smart farming and livestock keeping More tree planting by the community	Capacity building on climate-adaptive farming Promote dryland farming and livestock production Afforestation and reforestation