Teaching Governance in Iraq

Much of my professional energies over the past several months have been focused on designing and implementing some updates to our Women's Inclusion and Awareness (WAI) program. These will be implemented in four provinces in south Iraq (my area of responsibility) but also in our programs in the North and around Baghdad.

Since the program's inception in 2006, we've not only been teaching literacy in our centers, but also providing education on key social awareness topics. To date, we've educated approximately 18,000 women. Earlier in the Fall, we identified a need to review the topics and standardize the curriculum that's being delivered. Not only does this maintain the quality of our programming, but also ensures the safety of our program, our staff, and the women we're teaching.

With national elections coming up - originally scheduled for mid-January but now postponed until later in the Spring - we decided that our first social awareness module would be focused on democracy, governance and elections - in part, to promote women's independent participation in the upcoming elections. After receiving an inadequate first draft, it was clear that the job I wanted done would have to be done myself. And so I set out to write a curriculum.

It was an interesting thing, and a powerful one, trying to figure out what to teach 8,800 illiterate or semi-literate women about democracy and governance. Many would have limited and inaccurate knowledge about these basic subjects. Others would have next to no information about them at all. Each and every one of them is marginalized and overlooked in Iraqi political society. Their voices and their needs are regularly ignored in political decisions and activities, they lack advocates and role models in political spheres, and they are secondary actors in their communities. Overcoming those obstacles are exactly what we hope to achieve through the WAI program, and the curriculum I needed to design was the first step in helping to provide them with the tools to change the status quo.

In addition to the task of providing them with this vital and valuable information, there was a responsibility for their safety, and for mine. Mercy Corps' operations, and the WAI program, are high-profile and high-visibility in the communities where we work. We operate 205 WAI centers in south Iraq alone: this information was going to touch a lot of people. I needed to make sure that the information we were providing was not going to cause problems for students, teachers, and our program staff as it was disseminated into the community. There are no rules for this, only a sense of good judgement and a feeling for the state of things on the ground; understanding what's acceptable and what's objectionable, what's safe and what's too risky.

I think my high school teachers would've been proud at the finished product. In addition to the well-ingrained basics, I got an interesting crash course in the Iraqi government system, from constitution to parliament to judicial system. Interesting also was the fact that there were some elements that I couldn't fully describe - like the structure and function of the Council of Union, the second house of Iraq's relatively-new bicameral legislative system - as they remain so nascent that they're still not formed.

What the curriculum did include was a basic overview of democracy, the fundamental structure of the new Iraqi government, the rights and services guaranteed to Iraqi citizens under its constitution, the process of voting and voters' rights and responsibilities, women's role in government, and practical ways our students - illiterate, impoverished and marginalized - can begin to get involved in their communities and the governance process. It's barely a 100-level course, but it gives them initial information, and something to think about.

We held a series of Training of Trainers sessions for the trainers who would be delivering the lectures in our 205 centers. They were all women with university degrees, each with professional experience. Feedback from my staff was that none of them even knew all this information. With all the new changes and constant shifts in the structure and function of the Iraqi government since 2005, it's no wonder that political literacy in this country is incredibly low.

Our lecture series kicked off in WAI centers today, and I can't wait to see how it goes. My staff will be out monitoring activities from now through the end of January, and we're gearing up for a series of beneficiary surveys to test the womens' knowledge before and after the lectures. I'm eager to discover what knowledge they started with, and how much they learn. For me personally, it was an awesome experience to be providing thousands of oppressed Iraqi women with a seed of knowledge and a spark of hope that their voices and their actions do matter to this country's future.

Thanksgiving, Military Style

American Thanksgiving this year coincided with the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha, the celebration of Ibrahim's (Abraham's) willingness to sacrifice his son Isma'el (Ishmael) to God. Our Iraqi staff had a four-day holiday (plus weekend days, making a full week), so the Basra expat staff decided to vacate the guesthouse and spend the week on the Basra military base.

For me, this meant getting a proper Thanksgiving dinner. Not by Mom's standards, of course, but at least the basics were covered. I ate in one of the big military DFACs (cafeterias) with my colleague Tiana and two of her friends, female Majors in the Army Reserve, from Colorado and Minnesota, respectively. I expected dry, overcooked turkey, but to my surprise, it was quite good. The rest was rather take-it-or-leave-it. Our meal concluded with a guest appearance by the New England Patriots cheerleaders. No photos, unfortunately, but you're basically looking at a bunch of high school girls in shiny red tracksuits.

Following dinner, we headed to a party hosted by the Basra Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). Fun to be in a non-work social setting for the second time in four months (the other being a concert and barhopping in Paris with a couple of delightful French strangers). It was also FANTASTIC to have a brief return to beer and wine. Having to hand-carry booze into Basrah - which is legal, just hasn't been available for purchase* - meant that hard liquor was the only economical option during comings and goings from Baghdad, Amman, etc. Vodka and bourbon have been delightful companions a few nights a week, but each and every one of you know me as a tiny bit of a wine and beer snob. That said, even Budweiser and too-green Jacob's Creek shiraz-cab managed to hit the spot in a serious way.

Made some fabulous new friends over the course of the week, most of them at the British Consulate located on the base. Conveniently, the Consulate has a bar and is the only legitimate place to procure alcoholic beverages on the base. But, then again, history suggests I do kind of have a knack for knowing the right people ...

Another highlight was scoring some pork. (No, those of you with dirty minds, that wasn't what I meant ... Angela Owen, this means you) The PX on base had a well-stocked freezer section with pork chops and Italian sausage. Amazing!

It was pretty interesting to be inside a working military base for a week. The infrastructure and logistics are incredible, and I only got a glimpse. Basrah is a pretty quiet place these days, but there's still a lot of hustle and bustle. I'm not quite sure for what purpose, as troops are pulled back to US bases, but there are still a lot of guns running around. It looked like seventy-five percent of the soldiers are running around with enormous guns strapped to their backs at all times, although between the lots of perimeter razor wire, concrete walls, massively-armed checkpoints, and myriad other defenses of which I'm completely unaware, not sure who's coming in to need shooting. I've become amazingly desensitized to the presence of sidearms, sniper rifles, Humvee convoys and tanks - pretty much an everyday occurrence, both on base (American) and out in Basrah (Iraqi).

After a nice week's respite from the confines of the Basrah guesthouse - I hadn't left the house once in over a month before we headed to the base - we're back in town again. Now that I've gotten rid of my cabin fever, only two more weeks 'til I'm Portland-bound for the holidays.


* Alhamdullilah! (Thanks be to God) ... the ban on alcohol sales effected in Basrah in August has now been overturned. Seems it was unconstitutional to prevent people from imbibing. Let the soft liquor flow once more.