Project to Support Universities in Mosul

Following the liberation of Mosul, courses are gradually resuming at the university. Renovation works have started on certain buildings damaged by the fighting under the leadership of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), while the clearance of rubble is continuing in the most affected areas of the campus. The rehabilitation works are sometimes carried out by students and lecturers due to the lack of resources. A number of faculties still say that they lack material, in particular in the scientific laboratories where the equipment has often been destroyed or stolen.

In addition to the need to rehabilitate the physical infrastructure on the campus, other forms of needs are arising to restore the university campus to its former glory. The project to support universities in Mosul is a pilot project that aims to restore all the energy to the academic, cultural and economic life of the campus and city of Mosul through more effective career guidance and practical opportunities for a civic and professional commitment.

It is with this slogan that students in Mosul took part in the first competition launched by Expertise France in partnership with the Ministry of Higher Education and universities in Mosul.

This competition encourages new initiatives in the academic field and for the promotion of citizenship, as well as professional projects related to artistic and cultural promotion and the promotion and safeguarding of the heritage.

Mental health is a crucial issue for the stabilisation phase of Mosul. The objective is to help people overcome the trauma related to the violence they endured throughout the conflict.

Expertise France is helping the University of Nineveh prepare a new university degree in Clinical Psychology. The technical expertise deployed also takes into account the human and budgetary needs, as well as all the educational tools required to assist the University of Nineveh with its accreditation procedures with the Iraqi authorities.

The assistance from a French academic partner specialised in training in mental health is crucial in order to benefit from similar experience, as it is a relatively underdeveloped sector in Iraq. This comes in addition to the expected added value for the Iraqi academic and institutional partners, from the development phase for the curriculum to the graduation of the first clinical psychologists. The French partners will also make it possible to identify and mobilise international or regional trainers for the specific tuition that currently does not exist at local level.

The curriculum should clarify the benchmarks for the activities and skills for the training in clinical psychology, adapted to the health priorities in Iraq and in accordance with the international standards established by the World Health Organization (WHO).