We had some amazing Iraqui Students help us build this past weekend. They are amazing young men and women and it was such a pleasure and honor to meet them. Here is the story as published in the Reporter Herald. They did a very nice job!
Iraqi students gain valuable knowledge on Loveland Habitat job
By Tom Hacker
Loveland Reporter-Herald
Editor’s note: For security reasons, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq has asked that students portrayed in this story and photos be identified by first name only.
Clattering hammers are nothing new in Boise Village, the east Loveland subdivision where Habitat for Humanity is building 24 homes for low-income families.
On Saturday, the hammers were in the hands of 25 Iraqi college students who, in an ironic twist of international aid, were busily framing one Habitat home and painting another.
“Every day, I learn something new here,” said 21-year-old Hassan, a medical student from Babylon, Iraq.
“Today is like that. Everything I learn, I’ll take back with me.”
The students are sponsored by World Learning, a group organized by the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, and are among 50 who arrived in the United States in early July.
The group that worked in Loveland is hosted by Colorado State University for three weeks. A like-sized group is at the University of Southern Indiana.
“These are the future leaders of Iraq,” said Julie Sullivan, academic director for CSU’s World Learning institute.
“They will become doctors, engineers and scientists. And, they’re so happy, and so honored, to be here.”
Nineteen-year-old Soseek, a chemistry student from Basra, the southern Iraq port city from which the country’s oil is shipped, said she would take the Habitat ethic to Iraq.
“I’d like to see people in my country, and people from all over the world, build houses in Iraq,” she said. “I’d like to make my country the best in the world.”
The students on the job in Loveland were split nearly evenly between men and women, a first for the three years that the program has run through CSU.
In two prior years, Iraqi men had greatly outnumbered the women.
Sullivan said the collaboration among the students transcended the gender stereotypes that most people associate with Muslim countries.
“The boys are more protective than anything else,” she said. “There’s nothing like having these boys seeing a girl swing a hammer. It’s great to see men and women working together.”
Grey Gustafson, Loveland Habitat for Humanity’s construction director, said the Iraqis were among the best of the volunteers he has worked with.
“We take everybody and turn them into carpenters and into painters,” he said. “This is a group of fast learners, though.”
During the first year of the program in 2008, a smaller number of Iraqi students arrived, mostly from Kurdish territories in northern Iraq, removed from the strife that had enveloped the rest of the country, said Martha Denney, director of international education at CSU.
But as tensions have eased, more students are coming from Baghdad, Basra and other cities.
“War is like a life reality for them,” Denney said. “Many were born about the time of the first war in Iraq. Part of their experience here is being in a place where that reality is gone.”
After three hours on the job, the students took a break from the scorching heat for lunch in one of the nearly finished Habitat homes. They were joined by Jen Riley, a Habitat client whose home they had spent the morning framing walls for.
“I’ve got a sun allergy, so I couldn’t be out there with them,” Riley said. “But I got lots of pictures of them working on it. When the roof goes up, I’ll be working on it myself.”
Hassan said he plans to model a program after Habitat once he returns to Babylon — “perhaps a small institute to start,” he said.
Loveland Habitat executive director Gwen Stephenson said the agency would offer support for the efforts of any of the students who wanted to work to launch an Iraqi Habitat.
“Their dream is to learn how to build, and to start a Habitat in Baghdad,” she said.
“We’ve made a lot of inroads in countries where we have not been welcome before. We look forward to working with them after they return.”
See the story in the Loveland Reporter Herald: http://www.reporterherald.com/print.asp?ID=28807
