From US Central Command:

Base Camp Adder (Ali Base) Iraq — Approximately 80,000 Iraqi children are attending better schools in the nine southern provinces of Iraq because of the Iraqi Relief and Reconstruction Fund. The affected children attend 368 different schools ranging from intercity to rural, village mud schools.

The process to determine which schools should be replaced, repaired, or refurbished was a joint decision. First, the Director General for Education in each province assessed the schools along with Coalition forces and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer representatives. Second, schools were evaluated in order to provide a safe, healthy learning environment for schoolchildren. Third, a list of school renovations and replacements was prioritized by the Director General and matched to available Coalition funds. The final step was to award contracts and start construction.

Eight thousand students who previously attended deteriorated, unhealthy schools made of mud and reed now attend 39 new schools. Mud schools were demolished and replaced because the structures were beyond repair or refurbishment.

Construction renovation activities varied from school to school depending on the needs of each school and the priorities set for the school. After construction started, if a school needed more repairs than the original assessment, more improvements were done if funding was available.

Typical renovations included adding classrooms and toilet rooms; building perimeter courtyard walls; repairing roofs; installing floor and ceiling tiles; repairing electricity and installing ceiling fans; and replacing doors, windows, water and sewer systems. Workers repaired, plastered and painted the walls to complete inside and outside appearances.

Twenty-five schools currently are under renovation and expected to be finished by the end of this month. Workers soon will begin renovations on three additional schools recently added to the list.

In addition, many Coalition forces have collaborated with schools to equip them with desks, chalkboards, and other equipment. Countless other individual and group efforts have connected schoolchildren in the United States with schoolchildren in Iraq. Their efforts resulted in donations of thousands of boxes of school supplies and backpacks shipped to students in Iraq.

Local Iraqi contractors received the majority of construction contracts; they, in turn, hired local Iraqi workers to perform the construction and renovations.

Other government and nongovernmental agencies and Coalition forces’ programs served to perform additional school renovations.

By Suzanne M. Fournier Gulf Region South U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Also, the Corps of Engineers…

… is providing oversight for a number of water projects for 34 villages surrounding
northern Iraq’s largest city, Mosul.

“We have 44 wells either done or near completion in the greater Mosul area,” said Lee Kenderdine, USACE Resident Engineer at the Mosul Resident Office.

“These are mostly village wells, about 230 meters deep, that will provide water to villages that did not have an adequate water supply before,” he said.

Read more.