Soldiers help celebrate Sadr City school renovation

Photo By Staff Sgt. Michael Pryor | Willard, Ohio, native, Lt. Col. Dan Barnett, commander of the 1st Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, currently attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, talks with one of the teachers at the Yarmook Girl's School in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood during a visit to the school to see improvements made during a recent renovation effort sponsored by the Iraqi government, the INP and the U.S. military. The students all received free backpacks during the visit.  

BAGHDAD, IRAQ

10.24.2007

Story by Staff Sgt. Michael Pryor 

82nd Airborne Division Public Affairs Office

By Sgt. Mike Pryor
2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division Public Affairs

BAGHDAD – When students at the Yarmook Girl's School in Sadr City returned from summer vacation last month, they found that their school had received an extreme makeover, thanks to the government of Iraq and the U.S. Army.

U.S. Soldiers and Iraqi national police visited the recently renovated school to see the improvements and hand out backpacks and soccer balls to the students Oct. 22.

The renovations to the school totaled $200,000 of improvements, including a new roof, a new lighting system, repairs to cracks in the pavement and stairs and a paint-job, said Glen Allen, Va., native, Capt. Alex Carter, a U.S. Army civil affairs team chief who helped oversee the project.

Nine other schools in Sadr City have also been renovated over the past few months, as part of the same program that refurbished the Yarmook Girl's School, Carter said. The school improvement program has been made possible by cooperation between the Ministry of Education, the local neighborhood councils, school officials, the Iraqi national police, and the U.S. 1st Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, which operates in the Sadr City area, he said.

"What makes this special to me is that this really validates how effective we are working with the Iraqi police in Sadr City," Carter said.

The top Iraqi police official present at the school visit, Brig. Gen. Ali Ibrahim Daboun, commander of the 8th Brigade, 2nd Iraqi National Police Division, said he was also pleased by cooperation between the Iraqi government, the Iraqi security forces, and the U.S. military.

He said he hoped that the school improvement program would show the 2.5 million residents of Sadr City that they are a priority of the Iraqi government.

"In the past, they were neglected, but the new government will serve them," he said.

• Date Taken: 10.24.2007
• Date Posted: 10.24.2007 12:36
• Story ID: 13273
• Location: BAGHDAD, IQ