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By Maj. Dave Olson
1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Public Affairs Office
FORWARD OPERATING BASE FALCON, Iraq – Senior leaders of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Multi-National Division-Baghdad, visited the Hayy Jihad Civil Service Department Oct. 30, 2008, to observe the vocational training in progress in the western Rashid District community of southern Baghdad.
Lt. Col. Rick Caya, executive officer from Des Moines, Iowa, assigned to 1st BCT, 4th Inf. Div., who serves as the deputy team leader of 1st BCT's embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team, led a small group of leaders to visit 176 former Sons of Iraq members attending the vocational training at the CSD – Jihad program, which started Oct. 10.
Attending the vocational training, one of the former SoIs, Falah Hassan, fielded questions from the 1st BCT leaders' visit to the classroom.
Hassan, a finance student, said he plans to study hard to learn bookkeeping skills. The new skill will make him marketable to get a job after the six-month course is completed.
"I want to manage a grocery store," he said.
The new skill will provide him more opportunities for employment as the economy improves in the future, added Hassan, a former electrician turned SoI.
Maj. Timothy "T.J." Reed, a civil military officer assigned to 1st BCT, 4th Inf. Div., explained the U.S. military initiated the CSD – Jihad program that is turning former SoIs into government of Iraq employees.
The CSD – Jihad program is designed to help transition SoIs from U.S. employment to GoI or private sector employment because the SoI program is only temporary, said Reed, who calls Las Cruces, N.M., home.
The SoI program is similar to a neighborhood watch program in the United States, but the U.S. military hired these Iraqi citizens approximately 18 months ago to guard their neighborhoods from al Qaida terrorists or other militia groups, he said.
The CSD – Jihad program "is a safety net for all these SoIs," Reed said.
Many U.S. military leaders did not want the SoIs, who are mostly military-aged males, to become unemployed, explained Reed.
Their fear is that these former SoIs would be tempted to work for al Qaida or other terrorist groups if they did not have jobs to feed their families, he elaborated.
The GoI chose to pick up the SoI program, so many of the SoIs transferred to employment with Iraqi security forces, he continued.
Col. Ted Martin, commander, 1st BCT, 4th Inf. Div., explained that the Rashid district was one of the first areas in Iraq to transition the SoIs to the GoI.
"We transferred the SoIs in East Rashid to the 7th Brigade, 2nd National Police Division, Oct. 5," said Martin, who hails from Jacksonville Beach, Fla. "We transferred the SoIs in West Rashid to the 5th Brigade, 2nd National Police Division, Oct. 6."
Wassan al Kinnan, the CSD – Jihad headmaster, explained how the program works.
The students select one vocational discipline from 11 courses to study, which includes construction, electronics, vehicle mechanics, computer/secretarial, bookkeeping, business management and medical skills, Wassan said.
There are no prerequisites; however, the illiterate students select a manual labor skill to learn, he added. The school hours are 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., every day except Friday, with breaks for prayer and lunch.
The students, while they go to school, receive $300 per month from coalition forces using Disarmament, Demilitarization and Reintegration funds, Reed added.
As the visit continued, the 'Raider Brigade' leaders saw many of the other 11 courses in action. At the medical course, the visiting group spoke with one of the 13 female students out of 400 in the CSD – Jihad program.
Fadah Salah said she enrolled in the medical training to have an opportunity to get a job at a clinic when the course is over. She did not have a job before the course, and she did not know where she would get the valuable training if it were not for this program, Fadah said.
The first course is barely into its first month, yet the student training is already making improvements to the immediate area. The students in the engineering course built the much needed fuel lines for a fuel storage tank for the CSD – Jihad facility, Wassan said.
If the CSD – Jihad program is successful in the Rashid District, the GoI plans to duplicate the program in other areas of Baghdad and Iraq, Reed said.
| Date Taken: | 11.07.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 11.07.2008 03:44 |
| Story ID: | 26032 |
| Location: | BAGHDAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 168 |
| Downloads: | 155 |
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