By Capt. Sonny Avichal
555th Engineer Brigade
As security continues to improve in Iraq, a word permeates throughout all operations in the region: transition. While touring Salah ad Din's roads you cannot deny its progress: cleaner roads, improved Iraqi checkpoints and bustling marketplaces. Another definitive proof of progress is the presence of a new group of community workers lining the streets wearing hardhats and reflective vests; using traffic cones and construction signs. This new group of workers is the Iraqi Civil Service Corps or CSC.
Operating in twelve man teams, CSC's purpose: to train student workers and foremen to clean and repair local Iraqi roads. The workers are all local to their community and were former Sons of Iraq.
As security improved, the need for Sons of Iraq diminished resulting in many SOIs losing their jobs. The CSC was established help transition many SOIs back into the job market with valuable skills.
The program was first initiated by the 20th Engineer Brigade and then reenergized by the 555th Engineer Brigade as a means to continue ensuring Salah ad Din's roads are safe and clean. Unlike SOIs, the Civil Service Corps is run and managed by a local Iraqi contractor-- Green Dream. The CSC program is a three-phased, eight month program designed to improve Salah ad Din's roads while simultaneously training these workers in proper construction techniques. The first phase only lasted 30 days and focused heavily on removing trash from roads' sides. The program is currently in Phase-Two where workers were trained to repair potholes and road craters along roads using hand-mixed concrete, rebar, and wire mesh. During Phase-Three workers will be trained to utilize larger machines such as concrete mixers and hand compactors to complete larger repair endeavors on the roads. Additionally there are discussions suggesting adding a fourth phase to the program which trains and licenses workers on laying asphalt on roads throughout the region. The current program is only a pilot program and is scheduled to cease April 2009. As with the SOIs, Iraq's Government is deliberating on whether or not it will assume control of the program once the current contract expires.
When the CSC first begun, one of its biggest challenges was whether or not the former SOIs were willing to accept the change in work and the perceptions from the community about their new positions. Initially, the program received little support. 1LT Villafana, the platoon leader from the 561st Engineer Company responsible for Salah ad Din's program's quality assurance and quality control (Q/A;Q/C) stated, "During the first 45 days of the program, almost 20% of the workers quit."
However, as the roads became cleaner and word of the program's success spread, CSC workers began to take pride in their new occupation. In the last two months, there has been less than a five percent worker turnover. Additionally, numerous Iraqi news outlets have begun covering the CSC program. During one of the media events, an Iraqi reporter asked a CSC worker how he felt as now that instead of protecting the streets as an SOI he was cleaning and repairing the streets as a CSC. The CSC worker responded simply, "Before my community needed me to provide security, so I used a gun; now my community needs me to help rebuild the roads, so I use this [holding a shovel]."
The CSC is just a small example of the progress is being made every day in this country. However, with the initiation of programs like these throughout Iraq, this country's future looks bright.
| Date Taken: | 01.05.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 01.05.2009 07:21 |
| Story ID: | 28453 |
| Location: |
| Web Views: | 224 |
| Downloads: | 190 |
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