As a result of the numerous activities of the Career and Development Center (CDC) at the University of Zakho University, and its remarkable collaboration with the US- based organization IREX, CDC has received a letter of appreciation signed by Dr. Yusuf Goran, the KRG Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research. This letter of appreciation has been received after all the hard work and events of CDC, led by the commitment of Miss Edi Saeed Kachal, Director of CDC and Mr. Sabah S. Haji Career specialist at the center and Mr. Ali M. Qader the program coordinator of CDC since its establishment in April 2015.

According to the Director of CDC, Ms. Edi S. Kachal the Career Development Center at the University of Zakho has so far accomplished a lot of its goals and has moving forward successfully along with other university's career and development centers in the Kurdistan Region since its establishment.

One of the main successes of CDC has been owed to the mini-grand project which was applied in collaboration with the Department of English Language at the University of Zakho and the Career Development Center at the Polytechnic University Duhok. This project was realized due to the commitment of IREX organization and sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Bagdad.

In addition, CDC was able to organize a number of seminars and workshops at the University of Zakho regarding soft skills (employability skills) for students and staff members of the university.

Moreover, the center has got the opportunity to attend two training workshops in Erbil through IREX organization and sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, plus eight other online coaching courses with a career development center specialist at the Michigan State University for directors as well as staffs of CDC. Some of the main keys of that online coaching course were: awareness of CDC, building internal and external support, employers industry relation, industry engagement and alumni engagement to the university campus and CDC.

The Director of CDC has mentioned that one of the significant successes of the center which has been achieved was the application of the competition (USA visit and Michigan State University training course) between all university career development centers in Kurdistan Region. The University of Zakho could be one of the universities to get the opportunity to visit USA for participating in a ten-days training course at Michigan State University in the Washington, D.C. which will start on the 17th of January 2016.

translated by Mr. Dilan Nader Abdulqader