Catholic University in Erbil: Ten years of bringing hope and fostering coexistence in Iraq
Yohana Al-Zebbaree was a pre-teen boy living in the northern Iraqi city of Duhok in 2014, when jihadists from the Islamic State (ISIS) overran Mosul and began expanding their control over large parts of northern Iraq.
“I remember the night ISIS got close to the northern cities, like Erbil and Duhok. Everyone was watching the news, and our relatives were telling us to leave town and go further north,” said Al-Zebbaree, a 23-year-old from a Chaldean Catholic family.
ISIS did not make it as far as Erbil and Duhok, but it did invade much of the Nineveh Plain, the ancient homeland of the Christians in Iraq. An estimated 120,000 people fled to Erbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq.
The Chaldean Archdiocese of Erbil, led by Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda, did its best to provide shelter, food and clothing for the internally displaced.
But Archbishop Warda knows that “man does not live on bread alone.”
As ISIS imposed its fundamentalist vision of Islam on the population, institutions of higher learning such as Mosul University had to shut down. College-age students who ended up as IDPs in Erbil had no place to study.
Suddenly, there was a pressing reason to move ahead with a project that the archdiocese had envisioned two years earlier; a Catholic university. “With the shock of ISIS in 2014, the project became an urgent pastoral duty and obligation of care when thousands of families were forced to leave Mosul and the Nineveh Plain,” Archbishop Warda said in an interview with ACN. “Apart from pastoral and humanitarian care, we needed to continue their education.”
On 8 December 2015, the Catholic University in Erbil (CUE) opened as the first private nonprofit university in Iraq. This 30 September, the institution will celebrate its 10th anniversary and graduate its fifth class of students.
Al-Zebbaree, whose family had relocated many times because of persecution, would eventually graduate from CUE.
One of the university’s goals is to serve as an anchor for a dwindling Christian population and to help bring stability and social cohesion to Iraq.
“We needed to give the IDPs a chance to continue their higher education in a safe and welcoming place of learning that protects dignity and secures a future in Iraq,” Archbishop Warda said. “If parents know their children will be educated, then they are more likely to remain in Iraq.”
ACN’s support from the beginning
Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), which had been supporting Christians in Iraq since the early 1970s, was already undertaking a humanitarian assistance and reconstruction programme in response to the ISIS invasion – the largest such project in the pontifical foundation’s history. But it also saw the wisdom of supporting the educational initiative and thus paid for construction of one of the original academic buildings.
“ACN has been, and still is, a true partner in mission,” said Archbishop Warda. “It supported the university from the time it was just an idea, helped build a wing of the university, equip halls and medical labs, supported the initial running costs, gave scholarships to students displaced by war, and later equipped the library with computers.”
ACN International has donated over €1.9 million to the university. Another €921,000 is on the way.
A school that began with 11 students now has more than 760. More than 65% of students are on full scholarships. Most of those, as well as many partial scholarships, are funded by ACN. The scholarships are named in honour of the late Pope Francis, who visited Erbil during his historic 2021 visit to Iraq.
“ACN also supports accommodation for students whose families live far from Erbil and who cannot afford to pay for housing in Erbil,” the archbishop added.
Building a better Iraq
The university has departments specialising in medical laboratory science, nursing, pharmacy, architecture and engineering, accounting, business management, economics, information technology, computer science, English and other languages, international relations, and digital media. It recently inaugurated a department of Oriental Studies and Comparative Religion, the first of its kind in the region, offering courses on the range of religions and ethnicities that have long inhabited Mesopotamia. Courses are conducted in English.
“At CUE, we strive to foster a nurturing and inclusive learning environment that encourages academic excellence, critical thinking, and a deep sense of community,” says university president, Nazar Shabila. “Our commitment to holistic education encompasses spiritual, moral, and social development well past the classroom’s four walls.”
From the beginning, CUE’s development was guided by the idea that “students of all beliefs could live and learn together in an environment of mutual support,” ACN’s executive president Regina Lynch said.
John Smith, an American volunteer with ACN International who has offered his engineering expertise as a consultant to its projects in Erbil, has been a frequent visitor to CUE and is now a member of its board of trustees.
“When you go to the villages, you see the Christians on one side and Muslims on the other. You have the Christian shops, the Muslim shops; there are purchases, but you don’t see a lot of interaction,” Smith said. “But at the university, you see kids of all backgrounds just having fun together, being mutually supportive. I think it’s creating an environment for people to learn to coexist. If we can get a critical mass of people who think and behave like these students are, I think it will make a difference in the future.”
Yohana Al-Zebbaree, the young man who remembers seeing his city as a “ghost town” when fellow Christians were fleeing ISIS, is now student life officer at the university. He said the institution has “made people come together and be comfortable with each other, no matter the differences.”
According to ACN’s Regina Lynch: “It is remarkable to think back to 2015 when the seeds for the university first began to sprout. ISIS was still in control of the Nineveh Plains and would be for two more years. Erbil was the major centre for refugees from the conflict. Refugee camps dominated the landscape around Erbil, but in the midst of this, several small buildings were constructed to begin the CUE.” Now, as more and more students from various parts of Iraq graduate from the CUE, the values they learn there, she said, “will continue to positively influence the future of Iraq.”
