JumpStart International

JumpStart International has met with the Minister of Education in Iraq, who explained that his highest priority for clearing & cleaning, at this point, was the Ministry Headquarters itself.

The Ministry of Education is responsible for all the primary & secondary schools in Iraq. Their headquarters is adjacent to the Ministry of Higher Education, responsible for all the colleges in downtown Baghdad.

The area of the 11-story building, including a full basement, is estimated to be about 14,800 square meters (150,000 sq feet). In addition, there are the surrounding areas, including a 500 car parking garage, the grounds, etc.

The building is expected to take no more than 45 days to clear, involving about 200 workers. Scrap metal and other building materials will be saved, but unfortunately very little is left and every day that goes by without JumpStart workers and/or security on the site, more scrap metal and other materials are stolen from the site.

The Minister has asked that JumpStart begin work on the project. We will submit a work plan and begin work as soon as Saturday.

The interior looks almost exactly like this throughout. The building was destroyed by looters a few weeks after the war. They stole the windows, the doors, the fences, the air conditioning units, the elevators, the marble floor tiles, the marble wall tiles, the desks, the chairs, the windows, the window frames, and of course computers and everything else you can imagine. It must have taken more than 1,000 looters a few weeks to do all this work.

Looters set fire to the building as well.

Structurally, despite the fire, the building is in excellent shape, and after a reconstruction program that will undoubtedly take six months or more, the building will be in great shape.

Ali Ameer, a JumpStart foreman, begins a survey and work plan for the project tomorrow.