First gift for the baby

“My child will be born in two months. These diapers will be the first gift for the baby,” shares Fatemeh*, whose house was damaged in flood.

In July 2022, monsoon rain caused severe floods across Sistan and Baluchestan province in Iran, affecting 13 counties and 271 villages. Sistan and Baluchestan, the second largest province in Iran, is in the southeast of Iran, bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Delivering assistance in hard-to-reach locations

“We went to a remote location where we were probably the first organisation to provide assistance in the last four decades,” shares Nima, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s (NRC) Shelter, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Officer.

To deliver assistance to Afghans and Iranians, NRC travelled almost 1,200 kilometres by road, some of them severely damaged by heavy rains.

Our staff proudly share their experiences

“When we visited NRC’s local warehouse, at first sight, the massive load of relief items to be distributed was terrifying for me. A few days later, it was such a sweet experience seeing the warehouse empty after the mission was completed,” says Soosan, NRC’s Shelter, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Coordinator. She continues: “The team was not intimidated by the workload; we constantly brainstormed on how we could work faster, even if we had to work for longer hours.”

Kits for flood-affected people. Photo: Soosan Momeni/NRC

Each day, our team visited one or two villages where the distributions took place. It was challenging to fully distribute all the kits needed for each village on the same day. “We could not count on getting back to the same location the next day,” Soosan points to the challenges that could arise if the team didn’t manage time and human resources optimally.

“In ten days, we distributed over 15,000 kits, each consisting of at least six packages, to families. Some families even received 11 packages, depending on their specific needs,” shares Sajjad, NRC’s Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Assistant. It was interesting for people that kits had a specific selection of items for every family. From a tent for people who lost their houses, to notebooks and pens for families with children.

Distribution of kits in Shirabad Multi-purpose Service Centre. Photo: Soosan Momeni/NRC

Communication was key!

We served a diverse group of people in terms of their ethnicity and language, so the NRC team had to learn some key words in the local Balouchi language. Language was not the only barrier in this mission, the kits were too heavy for some people, such as single mothers, the elderly, or people with disabilities to collect, so NRC’s team went to their houses to deliver the kits to them.

With thanks to the European Union Humanitarian Aid, NRC in Iran provided humanitarian assistance to 10,209 individuals (1,903 families) through the distribution of various items, including tents, cooking tools, soap and other items for personal hygiene, and stationery kits for children.

NRC in Iran

Since 2012, NRC Iran has been assisting displaced Afghans in Iran as well as their Iranian host communities. We work to improve protection and access to basic humanitarian services across ten provinces (Alborz, Tehran, Yazd, South Khorasan, Hormozgan, Kerman, Razavi Khorazan, Marzaki, Semnan, and Sistan and Baluchestan).

Since mid-2021, NRC Iran has scaled its work significantly in connection with recent developments in Afghanistan, while maintaining all existing programmes in Iran.