It seems like very few of the positive stories get out of Iraqi. It's a pleasure when one finally does. Actor Gary Sinise has been on the news lately announcing the formation of a non-profit organization that hooks up desperate Iraqi schools with American sponsor groups like schools, churches, etc. to help provide them the basic necessities of learning. Below is just a couple of paragraphs from their website:
www.OperationIraqiChildren.org
The Need. During and after Operation Iraqi Freedom, American soldiers passing through Iraqi villages were horrified at the squalor of Iraqi schools, which had been severely neglected under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. Corralled in sweltering one-room buildings without air conditioning, fans, windows, solid floors, or even toilets, Iraqi students lack even the rudimentary supplies that American children take for granted. Libraries and books are almost nonexistent. Without these basic tools of education, Iraqi children face an uphill struggle to learn. "Imagine sending your child to a school in which there are virtually no books, no pencils, no paper, no blackboards," says Hillenbrand. "This is the reality for Iraqi children. The future of the Iraqi nation is being squandered for lack of basic school supplies."
Moved by the plight of these children, many American soldiers have taken it upon themselves to help. Working in small groups on their days off, soldiers gather supplies sent by family members and church groups and take them to villages, sometimes coming under fire as they work to reconstruct the schools and deliver learning tools to Iraqi kids. Their efforts have met with immense gratitude from local Iraqis and their children, who now have access to the basic tools of education for the first time in their lives. "I have seen Iraqi kids climbing on our soldiers and hugging them and kissing them," remembers Sinise, who recently accompanied Army soldiers to a dilapidated school they were rebuilding. "I have seen their smiling faces and their attempts to say 'I love you' in broken English. The folks I saw had hope in their eyes and gratitude in their hearts for what was done for them."