A new Catholic university in Kurdistan offers displaced Iraqis a reason to stay. Campbell MacDiarmid visits the campus and talks to its first students

On a sunny afternoon at the Catholic University of Erbil, the whine of a power saw can be heard through an open window. Builders are putting the finishing touches to the brand- new campus, but inside the first classes are already under way.

Vanessa Powell’s classroom has a whiteboard on the back wall and on the front a smartboard – an interactive whiteboard with an integrated computer monitor. Before the Australian teacher brings up any of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) material on the screen, her nine students begin the class by introducing themselves in English.

It is a scene of normality that for many of the students has been until now an unobtainable dream. Of the nine, six have stories of recent displacement.