Over the past four years your Veterans for Peace Iraq Water Project
has funded placement of more than 80 water treatment
devices---ultraviolet and reverse osmosis---in various Iraqi schools,
clinics and other institutions (Abu Ghraib Prison, even). Shown in these
pictures is our latest installation at a village school near Nassiriya,
southern Iraq. Check the photo: at this one boys and girls attend class
together---though girls are manifestly outnumbered. Several of our
previous water units have been placed at schools designated for boys or
girls exclusively. Contrary to what many of us assumed, however, our
Iraqi engineer friend Faiza informs me that coeducation of young
children in her country is not unusual. Surprises never fail to
surprise, and it shows how misinformed some of us can be, even after
years of involvement with Iraq and Iraqis. Later the kids are schooled
separately.
LA chapter member Dr Marcus Erikson, formerly of the United States
Marine Corps and now a marine scientist, raised almost all the money for
this installation among acquaintances in California. Several of our VFP
chapters have also made generous and vital contributions to IWP, and we
thank them on behalf of the many Iraqis our project tries to help.
The people who actually did the work, with assistance from locals,
belong to an Iraqi NGO called Student and Youth Cultural Organization of
Nassiriya. In other projects IWP has its own team in Baghdad at the
disposal of our friend Faiza.
A note about the Thank You sign: This is not always advisable. Some of
our water units have been placed in areas of violent hostility to the US
occupation. In such places display of a sign in English, no matter what
it says, is an invitation for trouble. We do not insist on
acknowledgment.
If you would like more information about this work go to www.iraqwaterproject.org.
Reports of previous installations are available on the site at "What's
New".