ABSTRACT
This chapter is unlike all the other chapters in this book because, instead of telling the stories of our own lives and social work practice, we have chosen instead to introduce our work with Beyan, an Iraqi Kurdish woman who manages a women’s centre in Erbil. Beyan was interviewed for this chapter. The name ‘Beyan’ is a pseudonym, a very common Kurdish name, to protect her identity. Development of the social work programme in Iraqi Kurdistan began in 2009, following an invitation by the Iraqi Kurdish government to Ersta Sköndal University College in Sweden to work together with a university in Iraqi Kurdistan. Nearly eighty students have already begun to read a corresponding European Bachelor degree in Social Work (180 ECTS).1 The work is funded as a joint project by UNICEF and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). The project involves building a new department of social work as well as a new degree course at one of the largest universities in northern Iraq.
