Posted on 03/03/2009 6:01:53 PM PST by SandRat
DIWANIYAH — Female students in Diwaniyah are celebrating the unveiling of a new secondary school for girls.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held at the Al Irshad Secondary School for Girls Feb. 26 to celebrate the completion of the new $1.2 million facility. The 12-classroom, multi-level school includes a laboratory, library, storage rooms and administrative buildings for 360 students. Iraqi contractor Al-Kahlaa Company began the project in December 2007 and employed 50 local men during construction.
Speakers at the ceremony included Shakir Ne’ma abid-own, director general of education for Diwaniyah Province, Michael Klecheski, lead for the Diwaniyah Provincial Reconstruction Team, and Lt. Col. Dwight Davies, the officer in charge of the Diwaniyah-Najaf Resident Office for the Gulf Region Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Shakir Ne’ma abid-own, director general of education for Diwaniyah Province, thanked everyone involved with the project for their efforts, saying it was quite an achievement. “We need more schools like this because most lack such good construction,” he added.
Michael Klecheski, lead for the Diwaniyah Provincial Reconstruction Team, pointed out that “in Iraq, in the United States, in every society that I know of, education is among the things people value most for their children. And so, we come here today to celebrate the opening of a new school. We celebrate a school with classrooms and hallways in which young women will be able to develop into productive members of the new Iraq that is growing around us all.
“Construction of this new school was itself a reflection of that new Iraq,” Klecheski continued. “It took courage and determination to bring it to completion, especially on the part of those Iraqis who did the work, oversaw it, and brought us to this day.”
Good news.
That’s wonderful.
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