KABUL, Afghanistan (January 19, 2002) - CARE this week launched a new project to help clear rubbish and rubble from the streets of Kabul. In the process, the international humanitarian organization is providing more than 3,000 Afghans with jobs over the next six months. The workers are picking up trash in districts 1, 2, 4, 10, 11 and 15. The garbage will be transported to a landfill outside the city. CARE also has hired 15 women health educators to teach hygiene classes to families living in the six districts.

There has been no garbage pick up in Kabul for more than 10 years, says Dad Mohammed, CARE's water and sanitation project manager. While providing jobs, the work also benefits everyone in the city by making it a cleaner and healthier place to live.

Additional workers will begin to resurface 112 miles of roads with gravel and line the same roads with drainage ditches. The workers receive approximately $1 a day for their labor equal to the cost of an eight-pound bag of flour and other staples in local markets.

Adds Mohammed: "There is enough food in Kabul but the problem is people don't have money to buy it."

The project, funded by the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO), also is providing work for widows who will be sewing 8,000 school uniforms for families who cannot afford to buy them.