JumpStart's first project in Baghdad was completed successfully on October 30, 2003. Three warehouses of the Electricity Commission of Baghdad are already in a sufficiently good condition to allow partial re-use. The other three warehouses were completely demolished and their concrete foundations were made available for outdoor storage.

The walls of the upper level of Warehouse #3 as they are being removed by a 20-30 ton crane.

The upper levels of Warehouses #1-3 cleared & cleaned.

 Warehouses #4, #5, and #6 used to be here. The final scraps and debris are being removed in this picture.

Meanwhile, emergency electrical supplies from the international aide community and the Coalition were arriving on dozens of flatbed trucks.

The electricity commissioner for Baghdad, Mr. Nafah, surveys the newly cleaned warehouses with the supply of huge new transformers.

JumpStart workers put up a new concrete wall and windows to seal the outside of the warehouse complex.

The Wazeria warehouses project still has much work ahead of it, but at least the first few steps have been taken.

Rioters outside the Baghdad School of Music & Ballet destroyed the metal fence surrounding the school on October 4th, and burned and looted some of the school's music instruments, as well as threatened the schools 250 students. JumpStart is replacing the fence with a 3 meter tall, 150 meter long brick wall to protect the compound of (about five) school buildings.

Little remains to protect the school, which is next to the American military field where ex-Iraqi soldiers are paid wages.

Razor wire is all that separates many sections of the school from the street.

Even the fence that stands doesn't provide much of a deterrent.

An overhead view.

The new wall rises.

The new wall stands 24 cm wide by 3 meters high (about 1 foot wide by 9.5 feet high)

An overhead view of one section of the new wall.

Some before and after pictures from the National Library:

The Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad is surrounded by a number of gardens. Additionally, the Museum has several internal courtyards, some of them clogged with sandbags and/or debris from the looting at the Museum in April.

Today JumpStart began work on clearing the grounds and employing some gardeners to plant grass and mow the lawns surrounding the Museum, some of which are overgrown, presenting a possible security problem. This is a relatively small project, it will employ perhaps ten workers for a week or ten days or so and require the use of a small amount of heavy equipment, such as a grader for the landscaping and a forklift for moving destroyed materials. This work is done upon special request by Mario Osio, Ambassador to the National Museum from Italy, and the Ministry of Culture.

Piles of dirt and rubble will be removed with dump trucks. These sandbags were probably originally used in the foxholes that were dug into the ground in the land surrounding the museum during the war. Inner and outer courtyards will be planted with a few hundred plants. A large strip of dirt perhaps 100 meters long that runs the entire length of the museum will be graded and seeded with grass. Some concrete edging blocks will be put in to separate walkways from grass areas.

"These sandbags were probably originally used in the foxholes that were dug into the ground in the land surrounding the museum during the war."

 A large strip of dirt, perhaps 100 meters long that runs the entire length of the museum, will be graded and seeded with grass. Some concrete blocks will be put in to separate walkways from grass areas. 

A new 150-meter long brick wall, three meters tall, will be built for the Baghdad School of Music and Ballet, the premier conservatory for children in Iraq.

The old metal fence, which was relatively weak and in disrepair, was overrun and left in ruins in a riot about 2 and 1/2 weeks ago, resulting in the destruction of much property including 17 rare pianos and a large drop-off in enrollment in the 300-student school as parents withdrew their children due to security concerns. Fortunately, the Swiss and Norwegian embassies have donated some money and a collection of twenty-five instruments to help the school's programs resume.

The project will begin tomorrow and will be completed in approximately three weeks, employing perhaps 15-20 bricklayers and assistants.

Work begins on clearing National Library.

Today at 7AM the first 20 workers began clearing the National Library & Archives building (16 workers, 3 supervisors, 1 foreman). Provided with gloves, shovels, wheelbarrows & hammers, much progress was evident in only a few hours of work... but it's a large amount of space, so the work may take as much as a month, especially if some repainting or other finishing work is begun.

Tomorrow, over 30 workers will be on-site. The Ministry of Culture will be actually recreating the National Library's Archives at the ornate and undamaged building which was previously the Army Officer's Club in Al-Aadamiya (sp). The existing structure, which is relatively undamaged, will serve other purposes for the Ministry of Culture.

Today JumpStart International toured three sites with the chief engineer and a project engineer of the Ministry of Culture, which is responsible for theatres, television, radio, libraries, etc., throughout Iraq.

JumpStart will begin work on one of the projects tomorrow morning and will probably start work on another 1-2 projects in the next 10 days with the Ministry of Culture.

We saw one site that had been mostly destroyed by the looting and burning in Baghdad directly after the city fell; one site that had been looted and burned but where the structure is intact; and one site that had simply been looted and only partially burned. There are literally thousands of such sites throughout the city, but the three that they took us to are ones they consider important cultural centers:

1. The National Cinema complex, which includes a 600+ seat theatrical/movie theatre and a 10 story office building that previously contained the offices of the film industry and other theatrical productions. The entire ten-story building will need to be completely cleared, cleaned, demolished and reconstructed. The structural damage due to the fire is evident throughout, with floors and ceilings caved away in many areas throughout. The theatre, which is relatively preserved inside, will unfortunately need to be completely demolished as well, because the roof of the superstructure is caving in. We will save the seats and materials, but it is such a tragedy. I would estimate that the entire size of the complex is roughly 18,000 s (180,000 sq ft), possibly as much as 28,000 sq meters. The first and foremost issue in cleaning and clearing this structure is safety; it will be difficult to work in parts of the damaged structure. Nonetheless, the work needs to be done, and we hope to begin work on this project in ten days or so. For the clearing and cleaning part, this work will probably take between 50-150 workers and the constant use of a Tower Crane, possibly two. We will need the CPA to give us access to these cranes, and we'll likely need to take the building down floor by floor, using as many as ten welders and many manual laborers and operators.

2. The Baghdad Music & Ballet Conservatory. About 250 students study music and ballet here, both boys and girls. The school includes both a primary and a secondary school. The work on this project is more of a finishing nature, except for the construction of a brick and steel fence, which is considered absolutely necessary because of a riot that took place outside the CPA about 2 weeks ago (ex-Iraqi soldiers rioting ostensibly because they didn't receive the back pay they were expecting). The school was overrun with rioters and a security guard was injured but fortunately no-one was killed. The fence is considered the first priority, because parents are very afraid for the continued safety of the children, and are withdrawing their students from the school en masse because of the lack of a fence, which was destroyed. JumpStart does not normally consider projects like this, because we are too small to be able to fund the capital construction expenses, but we may be able to work with the Ministry of Culture on this if the budget is small. It would likely employ about 15-25 bricklayers and helpers, good deal of the expense being materials.

3. The National Library. Another unspeakable tragedy, the National Library was looted and its contents destroyed by fire. Although the structure is intact, the entire inside of the structure needs to be cleared of rubble, cleaned, etc. Three floors of approximately 4,000 sq meters each, for a total of 12,000 sq meters (120,000 sq feet (possibly less)), JumpStart will begin work on this project Sunday, initially with 30 workers, growing as needed. This is a straightforward clearing & cleaning project, not dangerous. It's amazing that it is six months after the wabeen started.

I met with the Minister of the Ministry of Culture, Mr. Al-Jazairi, and he approved of the project at the National Library. We hope to begin additional projects with them shortly.

JumpStart International met yesterday with Iraq's Undersecretary for the Ministry of Housing and Construction.

Unlike Western countries, where affordable housing is relatively available, there are a number of systematic difficulties to housing construction in some Middle Eastern countries. Because of a banking system that is affected by some cultural traditions (for example, the Koran is perceived to forbid charging interest) as well as difficulties because of the war, loans are not available to most people, partially because loans are too expensive, equating to about 15% interest.

A total of 15% interest effectively means that the cost of a mortgage doubles the price of a house every 4-5 years, rather than every 12 years like a 6% mortgage does. As a result, if you are buying a house in Iraq, you do it with cash: a concept that would be inconceivable in the west, and which also results in a substantial drag on the housing construction industry.

Despite that, as you drive throughout the city, many individual houses can be seen being worked on, although there are no large housing projects or high-density housing construction going on that I have seen. JumpStart is proposing to start a pilot project with the Ministry of Housing and Construction that would use existing land stock of the Ministry and build 10-20 units of housing of 100 sq meters (1000 sq. ft) that would be targeted to sell for $8,000 per unit, using traditional construction means. This may or may not be possible in today's environment, but we are aiming to start the pilot project within 45 days and find out what happens.

Monthly salaries, which for those who have jobs in the middle class may be only $200/mo, mean that housing payments would need to be no more than about $70/month. This means that if we had a program that required $4,000 down and $100/ mo for 4 years that the family would own a house after four years. This misses the "sweet spot" of the market, but for the time being, it could provide a small jumpstart in housing construction. We would hope to work with the Ministry to spin out private construction and real estate development businesses and work with existing banks to provide loans within these guidelines. If the model works, it could be scaled up rapidly to employ several thousand workers in home construction and partially provide for the sore need for housing in the Baghdad market.

The 5 year payback on construction would lessen the lender's financial risk and the chance of foreclosure and increase the throughput of the financing partners to fund more loans more quickly. The disadvantage is that the houses would still be unaffordable for most of the residents of the country; however, it is a simple and single step in the right direction.

There is no lack of projects in Baghdad. We hope to begin work on two more projects in the next week to ten days, and will be meeting with the Ministry of Culture (in twenty minutes) to talk about their priorities.

The Ministry of Culture is responsible for the city's theatres, TV, and other public spaces such as auditoriums for the symphony, etc. Already, discussions have been held with the Ministry of Trade to determine which shopping malls would be best to begin work at. We hope to have 200-300 workers by the end of the month involved in these clearing projects. There is no lack of labor willing to work at reasonable prices for the local market, on the contthere is a vast availability of willing workers.

One of the last remaining roof steel beams being removed from Warehouse #1

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After 2 days of working with a 15 ton crane, a 20 ton crane started work at the Moustanzeria Warehouses project today. Over 60 workers are on the project now, including the crane operators, the supervisors and the forklift crew. The roof of the first warehouse was removed in about a day and a half. The cranes are need to not only remove the structure, but also to suspend the torch workers in mid-air so they can cut the steel beams down. Tomorrow two 20 ton cranes will be at work to complete the removal of all three roofs of the salvagable warehouses. The remaining three warehouses (#4-6) will need to be razed and then rebuilt from the ground up. Meanwhile, the insides of the first three warehouses have been completely emptied and cleaned.

Warehouse 1 entry way. The first three warehouses are all two stories, approximately 20,000 square feet each story.

Warehouse 4

Warehouse 3 entryway

Tens of millions of dollars worth of electrical equipment and supplies was destroyed in the fire. Some materials, insulators, clamps, winching wire, etc., were able to be salvaged amidst the soot. But the bulk of valuable materials was either destroyed or looted. The wastefulness of it all is just heart-breaking. 

Concrete walls between the warehouse buildings will all need to be removed and replaced. The un-reinforced concrete blocks, because of the heat of the fire, crumble extremely easily.

Shelving units... throughout all the buildings, much of the strong metal shelving was destroyed, melted by the heat of the fires. Some of the shelving will be cleaned, repainted, and re-used. Much of it will be sent to the scrap metal dealer for recycling.

Bumped into the General Director of Baghdad Electricity Ministry again today, as he was touring our site. He seemed pretty happy to see the workers, although he thought we could use about 75 workers instead of the 35 or so we had today. I agree (although we started with a smaller number of workers, anyway, just to figure out the flow and set up the dynamics, etc)... especially if you consider that were only clearing 3 of the warehouses right now. But I think a team of 50 will for sure be able to get the work done on the first three by the end of next week, at least in terms of clearing and cleaning the building and maybe removing the damaged roof of the first warehouse.

Reconstruction and finishing work is another story. Reminds me that yesterday there was a group of reconstruction people in from the CPA, along with their security forces, etc. Hope to get them to help on this project, although they were just there to advise/work on an inventory management system. I think they were surprised to see a Westerner there, especially someone doing reconstruction work! But I hope they can help, especially in terms of the heavy equipment.

JumpStart International has started its first project in Iraq, under which it will clean the Ministry of Electricity's Moustanzeria Warehouses.

The organization met on Tuesday with the general director of the Ministry for Electricity in Baghdad and toured the six warehouses which had been looted and burned after the American takeover of Baghdad. The Baghdad official said the project was of the highest priority and asked for our assistance. The six warehouses are needed to store and protect large incoming shipments of international aid supplies for Iraq's electrical infrastructure.

On Wednesday the initial funds were disbursed, on Thursday the hand tools and supplies were purchased, and on Saturday 30 workers, three supervisors, and two overseeing engineers from Zozik, JumpStart's subcontracting partner, were there to begin the initial rubble and rubbish removal. At the end of the first day, dozens of tons of material had been removed from the structures, including some metalwork and shelving units that will able to be re-used after cleaning and repainting.

This was a one-day project to start off the organization's effort to encourage physical and pyschological recovery after the US invasion. There were 30 workers the first day of demolition at the Wazeria site. Most are pictured here, at the end of the day.