Kansas State University is supplying stacks of textbooks to help rebuild Iraq.
K-State is partnering with the Manhattan-based nonprofit Help Us Learn ... Give us Hope to provide textbooks to Iraq's Basrah University. The books will help train a new generation of professionals, including engineers and agricultural business leaders.
Post-war Iraq doesnUt have enough teaching materials and textbooks for its students, according to the United Nations, and about 5 million Iraqi citizens are illiterate.
K-State President Kirk Schulz and other university administrators visited Iraq in November as guests of Fort Riley's 1st Infantry Division. One of those administrators was Art DeGroat, director of military affairs at K-State and a retired Army lieutenant colonel.
"While we went to Iraq as a developmental activity that contributed to our military partnership, we discovered an opportunity to help, and that is simply what K-Staters do," DeGroat said.
Basrah University was once a crown jewel in the higher education system of the Middle East, DeGroat said.
"During our visit we discovered years of atrophy and neglect, but we also met committed, brave and persistent university leaders hoping for a brighter day," he said. "K-State wants, in some small way, to be part of this new dawn for Basrah University and its students."
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