What a Day!

Yesterday, as part of our visit from our Regional Program Director for the Middle East and Senior Vice President, I was lucky enough to go on a few field visits. It was a fantastic experience (and not just because it was nice to get out of the house).

First, I should explain briefly about the program I'm working on. Mercy Corps has programming throughout Iraq, but the program I work with - our Community Action Program - is based in four governorates (states) in the southernmost part of the country. The CAP program has two key objectives:

First, we work with communities to form Community Action Groups, groups of citizen representatives who advocate for the needs of their communities. These groups get together, identify the most pressing needs affecting their community, come up with ideas for projects, and work with members of Mercy Corps' national staff to develop project proposals. We provide these groups with training on advocacy, project development, basic proposal skills, and ways to seek funding and engage their local government representatives.

The second key objective focuses on good governance; we work with local government entities (district and sub-district councils of elected representatives) to respond effectively to the needs of their communities and to include community-led projects in their annual budgets. They also receive training on effective governance within the framework of the Iraqi government, constituent outreach, budgeting, seeking funding from higher levels of government, etc.

Combined, those two functions ideally help to promote partnerships between civil society ("the people") and government at multiple levels, while providing a variety of benefits to community, from construction or rehabilitation of facilities to transformative activities for youth, women and persons with disabilities.

Yesterday, we had several visits to government groups and project sites that really brought the program's many levels to life. I apologize for the lack of photos, but did at least learn that it's safe and acceptable to tote my camera around and take pictures. Now I know, so there will be photos to come from future trips.

The Al-Zubier District Council
Our first stop was to meet with members of the Al-Zubier District Council. Al-Zubier is a district adjacent to Basrah, with about 750,000 residents. We have implemented a variety of projects in Al-Zubier, from building schools to organizing soccer tournaments.

As we drove out to Al-Zubier, we drove over a canal built in '93 by Saddam, in an effort to source clean water for the citizens of Basrah. He named it for himself, and since his fall the citizens of Basrah have referred to it as the "Leader River". From that vantage, we could see refining towers in the oil fields of Ramallah, made famous during their burning during Gulf War I.

In our hour-long meeting with the council, they thanked us profusely for our work and our support. They praised our local staff, saying that, "they implement projects as if they were building their own houses." Then we listened to their concerns and ideas for ways we can continue working together on projects in the Al-Zubier community.

Education was their primary focus. "You can have a few hours a day without electricity," their chief engineer said, "but you can get that back later in your life. But once a child is grown up and has received no education, you can never get that back." But their interest went beyond just building schools, they said. They were concerned about the shortfalls in the educational system, and wanted to improve it. They said they want to do an assessment of the public school system in the district, to identify areas of weakness, so they could provide training for teachers and administrators to improve those areas. They recognized that to improve the educational system, it would be necessary to build the capacity of its staff. They also asked what other councils were doing, not just in Iraq but everywhere Mercy Corps works. They were interested in seeing what other leaders at their level were doing, what was working, and what they might be missing. We explored the option of a cross-cultural exchange between their council and one in another country where we work. I was so inspired by their progressive, proactive vision for improving their community's most important resource.

At the end of the meeting, they invited us to see two schools. The first was a primary school for girls that we had built in Al-Zubier. School is out for the summer, but we stopped by to look at the building. Before the school was built, many girls in that neighborhood could not attend school, as the nearest primary school was 2 kilometers from their homes - too far to walk for young children. Now, these girls have a facility to learn.

The second school was a high school that had been destroyed during coalition fighting. Many of the teachers in the public school system in Al-Zubier, and even some of the council members, had attended that school. What walls remained were crumbling, and many areas were simply piles of rubble and garbage. We got out of the car and walked to the building, and noticed a clothesline full of drying clothes. A boy about five years old peeked out from a darkened doorway. Soon after, his brothers and sisters emerged from behind old blankets and sheets tacked up against what remained of the building's facade. Soon, we were surrounded by a crowd of six smiling, laughing children, with older ones peering out from their hiding places. The family, internally displaced, had taken refuge inside the abandoned building.

The mother came out and spoke to us. The father was very ill, she said, and could barely move. He could not work, and the family barely had anything to eat. She knew there was a program in the country for families such as theirs, but she had never had any luck getting support. If she came to the Mercy Corps office, she asked, could someone please help her navigate that process of getting government support? Moaid, one of our Community Mobilizers, told her we could help her get the support she needed.

The Vice-Gov's Office
From Al-Zubier, we went to the Governor's Office in downtown Basrah. This is the equivalent of going to Arnold Schwarzenegger's office. Each governor in Iraq has two Vice-Governors, and we met with one of them for an hour, along with several of his ministers.

During that meeting, his minister for Engineering made two requests: Can Mercy Corps buy us a 50-kilowatt generator to power a new water station we've built, and can Mercy Corps help us rehabilitate the central jail in Basrah? The generator was a pretty quick no, as that falls outside the scope of our work here, but our VPs were all over the prison idea. Some of our staff will need to go there to make an assessment, but I'm probably not going to be in on that one. Parading an American woman around an Iraqi prison is probably not a good idea. But talk about things you'd love to say you'd seen!

The minister for Youth made two requests also: To continue our programming focused on soccer, and to implement programs targeting widows and orphans. Apparently Basrah has a large number of widows - an estimated 6,000 - and they need help. Of course, this is an area that lines up perfectly with our mission, and we presented this strategy to the governor's representatives: Give us 2-3 women per 600 widows who have leadership roles in their community and can advocate effectively for their peers. Let's arrange meetings between them and our Community Mobilizers, so they can identify community needs and let us know what their priorities are. We'll get to work developing projects once they tell us what needs to be done.

I was somewhat surprised at the different experiences. Initially, I'd have guessed that the roles would've been reversed, that a district council would be the one asking for tangible things, while a governorate would be looking to us for strategy and more sustainable ideas for community improvement. It was really a testament to our staff's work, and the training sessions they've held for local government officials, that the council in Al-Zubier was so forward-thinking.

The Women's Literacy Class
Later that evening, we stopped by a session of our Women's Inclusion Program. In this program, illiterate women and children are able to begin an 18-month program in basic literacy, including reading, writing and arithmetic. By the time they complete the program, they are prepared to sit for primary school exams. If I remember correctly, we have established about 125 centers where women can come and learn.

This center was located in a run-down school. The screens were shredded off the windows, the room was not air-conditioned and extremely hot, and the 60 or so women and girls were crowded into a tiny 10x10' room, 3 or 4 to a bench. They ranged from age four to age 60, and were in their final class of the program.

We were introduced to the group, and one of our staff translated a question to them: "How has this program changed your life?" Immediately, a beautiful, precocious-looking girl of about 13 shot out of her seat with her hand in the air. "Before this program it was like I was blind. Everywhere I went, I didn't know what I was seeing. Now that I can read, I can see." Someone called out, "I can teach my children to read and write, and I can help the older ones with their schoolwork." Another woman, about 40 years old, stood up and said, "I used to go to the market and would have to ask a shop owner for the price of items. Because I had to ask, he would say to himself, 'This is an illiterate woman,' and he'd quote me a higher price. Now that I can read the prices of items myself, I get a better price because the bartering starts lower."

Our colleague asked how many women were planning to vote in the elections in January. Almost every hand in the room was raised.

The teacher - a small, energetic woman of about 30 - invited us to sit and listen to their lesson. The class had just finished writing down what "human rights" meant to them. They resumed the lesson by bringing their definitions up to the front of the room and taping them on the blackboard. When all had finished, the teacher began reading them aloud:

"My children will be free and can get an education"
"I can find a job"
"Everyone will have enough to eat"
"We will be able to vote"

We rose, and through our colleague's translation, conveyed our congratulations to these women, and our pride at what they had accomplished. I cannot imagine people more brave, who have overcome so much, as the women in that room. To simply attend one class would be full of obstacles: they would have to summon the courage to accept their illiteracy and decide to make a change. They would have to convince their husbands, their fathers, their brothers, their uncles to let them leave the house to go to a class where they'd learn skills to be independent and exercise their intellect. They'd have to show up every week, after completing all their household responsibilities, and have the resolve to master the challenge of learning to read and write, their first academic pursuit of any kind.

It was hard not to cry as I looked at their faces, young and old, and know that, given the chance, the women in that room were the seeds of a new Iraq. Let us hope they have the freedom and the inclination to flourish, to be empowered by their newfound knowledge, and to finally be able to stand up and help bring their country to relative peace and stability.