While western Iraq's Anbar province was making headlines with its voter turnout this past December 2005, a quieter turnout of its young men was making headway graduating from school. In Habbaniyah, a volatile city where rockets and mortars destroy buildings and lives all too suddenly and frequently, the Iraq Construction Apprentice Program (ICAP) is facilitating Iraqi rebuilding efforts, one brick and one life at a time. The apprentice course began in September 2005 at the military base there, an old British base that the Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence (AFCEE) contracted ECC International (ECCI) to renovate so the Iraqi army could establish a presence in Anbar. In the program, apprentices age 12 to 22 learn the construction skills most needed at the job site and most likely to find them future employment after completion of work at the base. The ICAP program had more ambitious goals than simply teaching skill sets, officials said. ECCI benefits from higher skilled labor, AFCEE gets an improved product and Iraq receives a boost in construction sector capacity. Parents found new hope in seeing their sons enter the labor market, and the local economy improved as student stipends supplemented family income. For the young men, self-esteem grew along with competence. More important, officials said, the hope is that self-reliance will make these young men less vulnerable to the appeal of insurgent leaders.