Fallujah community members can look outside each morning and see signs of change in their neighborhoods. Small, but significant beacons of hope are brought on by new construction projects appearing all over the city.

To aid a city rising from the ashes of war, Marines with Detachment 3, Civil Affairs Group 3, Regimental Combat Team 1, met with Iraqi contractors and construction workers July 5 to continue to help facilitate the laborers’ efforts in building a new school for the children in the Abu Saleh area of Fallujah.

The new school will replace the older one that was falling apart due to weather and collateral damage inflicted during battles between insurgents and coalition forces.

The detachment oversees reconstruction projects such as this one, in hopes that the children in Fallujah can return to school and lead a normal life.

“The old building was falling apart and students couldn’t go to school when it rained because the teachers were afraid that the roof would collapse on them,” said Lance Cpl. Greg W. Holt, a 19-year-old civil affairs operations assistant from Auburn, Calif.

The school will include two floors and 12 new classrooms, and house up to 350 students in Kindergarten through sixth grade.

Marines with the civil affairs group have been coordinating for months with the school headmasters and the Iraqi administration of education to ensure the new building will be a success for the students.

The detachment also took the time to meet with “Brothers for Building,” a company that works hand-in-hand with Marines from RCT-1 and the Iraqi administration of education.

“We have started working really closely with the Iraqi government so eventually they can take over future projects such as this one,” said 2nd Lt. Michael B. Robison, Detachment 3’s team leader from Sierra Madre, Calif. “This project is an example of a patronage project where a tribal leader spearheads an activity to help a community.”

A Sheik and tribal leader known by coalition members as “Dark,” owns the building company and has worked with Marines in previous years to help with several similar projects.

The Fallujah City Council votes on building plans and takes bids from trusted contractors. The Marine Corps has worked with the Iraqi government, ensuring workers are up to standards. Now, Marines are hoping the torch will be passed, and that the Iraqi government will take charge of future projects.

“We hope to get the local people less focused on the Marines helping them, and look to the Iraqi government for support for the community,” said Robison.

The school’s construction is scheduled to be finished Aug. 20.

DVIDS
By Cpl. Chris T. Mann
Regimental Combat Team 1 Public Affairs Office

ISAF’s troops of Regional Command Capital (RC-Capital) are conducting reconstruction projects worth more than $3.6 million in Kabul’s remote areas.
The Italian Task Force operating in eastern Kabul recently inaugurated two foot bridges and five wells in the rural district of Sarobi. Works are also in progress for a library and a new police station.

The Italian contingent operating in the valleys of Musahi and Char Asyab have also been working on reconstruction projects. They laid the first stone of a new school for 300 students and will soon inaugurate a number of public facilities in the southern part of the capital.

All the projects are being conducted in coordination with local authorities and are predominantly funded by the Italian Ministry of Defence at a cost of $2 million.

French planned projects include building 14 bridges and seven wells, with an overall financial engagement of about $1.4 million. The French Civil-Military Cooperation Teams have also conducted surveys to implement projects aimed at rehabilitating three government buildings, a district police station and six smaller police stations, all located in the northern part of Kabul, namely in Goldarreh, Qareh Bagh and Mir Bacheh Kowt.

Turkish units of RC-Capital have short-term plans for Kabul using national funds totalling more than $200,000. Projects include installing wells and building a 12-classroom school.

ISAF

The town of Tuz, Iraq has played a significant role in Coalition operations since 2003, and today more of its 15,000 residents have reliable electricity.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in northern Iraq completed an electrical network project in February that brings electricity generated at the Bayji power plant to approximately 3,000 Iraqi homes in this village located 110 miles north of Baghdad.

“We expanded the existing distribution system so that the same amount of electricity could be provided to more homes in the neighborhood,” said Oni Gomez, resident engineer in the Gulf Region North district’s Tikrit Resident Office.

Rehabilitating the existing Tuz power network included installing 30 new transformers, as well as eight kilometers of conductors and power poles, Gomez added. The contractor began work in October 2007 and the project was turned over to the Director of Electricity in Tuz on Feb. 12. The $1.1 million project was funded through the Economic Support Fund.

“The way forward from here is for power generation to be increased,” Gomez said, “so that the system we installed in this project can be used to its full potential.”

The Gulf Region North district provides project and construction management services for military and civil construction in the seven Northern provinces of Iraq, helping the new provincial governments assume responsibility for managing their infrastructure development, as well as the capability to sustain it.

To date, the Gulf Region North district has completed 207 reconstruction projects in the Salah ah Din province, totaling $209 million. Another 28 projects are currently ongoing, totaling $64.4 million.

MNF-I