CARE Project in Kabul Reaches 120,000 People in Need

CARE
Tuesday, 4 June 2002

But more help is needed as the country rebuilds

CARE's emergency shelter and rehabilitation project has improved the lives of 120,000 needy people here, creating jobs, providing shelter and rehabilitating the city's key infrastructure.

The just-completed project, funded by The European Commission's Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO), generated jobs for more than 8,000 people, improved city sanitation by removing almost 16 million cubic feet of garbage and debris and digging nearly 125 miles of drainage ditches. Workers also resurfaced more than 100 miles of roads with gravel, allowing traffic to move more smoothly.

In addition, CARE provided materials to help tens of thousands of people repair war damage to their homes, including displaced families in the former Soviet Embassy compound.

"As CARE provided windows and door frames , a hope has been created for us," says M. Yaqoub, a resident of Kabul. "As a result of CARE's activities to rehabilitate housing facilities, 65 families have returned to our district."

But the work here -- and throughout the country -- has only begun.

"More development and economic support from the international community is needed to ensure that the country progresses," says Sally Austin, assistant country director for CARE in Afghanistan.

Indeed, more than half a million Afghan refugees already have streamed across the borders. Overall, more than 5 million people in Afghanistan need humanitarian assistance to survive, including more than 1 million who have been displaced from their homes. Nearly 20 percent of those in need are children under the age of five.

"CARE's activities are very useful and effective for helping the poor people, the municipality and the Afghan Interim Administration (AIA)," says Fazel Karim Aimaq, mayor of Kabul. "The jobs CARE created helped to clean the city, which will decrease the health risks in the area. We hope that CARE will continue to work and expand its vital programs."

For more information, or to contact CARE, see their website at: www.care.org