Zardozi activists women work for environmental protection In their area
Zardozi establishes Community Business Centers for its clients in four provinces Herat, Balkh, Jalalabad, and Kabul in order to facilitate women’s access to business supports services such as microfinance, trainings, and etc. Zardozi’s vocational trainers, Kadars, regional staff, and clients gather on visit day. CBCs are the place where Zardozi’s activist women known as Kadars encourage clients to talk about problems and issues of concern in the community.
Zardozi trains Kadar in facilitating collective action to address problems in the community. Most commonly women rise practical issues such as are found in the poorly developed urban districts, where the municipality has not yet extended its services. A poor waste removal services is an issue in many districts of Kabul province.
One of our clients in Char Qalai-Wazirabad said “if the municipality does not remove the garbage regularly, it threatens the residents’ health and the environment as a whole” Char Qalai-Wazirabad used to be a good example of poor waste management – the residents had no option but to throw their garbage onto a piece of unused land at a street corner. Not only residents but others saw it as convenient to throw their house waste.
“The garbage was piled up in a huge mound near the wall and there was a terrible smell. We couldn’t remove all that garbage ourselves, so we needed the municipality to clean the area.” said Zardozi staff.
Char Qalai-Wazirabad’s elders and our Kadars visited the district municipality to solve the issue of the garbage, The district municipality has cleaned the area as part of its services and suggested to the residents that they hire a private company for removing their wastes regularly till the time municipality starts its waste removal services which is already in their plans. Nowadays, the residents in Char Qalai-Wazirabad pay a monthly contribution to a private company for removing the wastes twice a week from their area.