BAGHDAD: Few countries have a more dire need of brave and skilled nurses than war-torn Iraq, and few countries make it harder for women to train and work outside the four walls of their family home.

Now, however, a determined group of young women have defied daily threats and dangers to take part in a pioneering US-led training programme that could soon serve as a model for isolated women in other conflict zones.

“You are now leaders, teachers, and role models for women of Iraq to help bring healing to a hurting nation,” US Army Major Darrin Frye told a ceremony where grinning graduates received stethoscopes and white blouses.

The 17 women, aged between 18 and 45, have completed a six-week training course at a clinic on the sprawling grounds of Camp Victory, a US military complex on the western edge of the battle-scarred Iraqi capital.

One was not able to attend the entire Preparatory Iraqi Nursing Course in person.

She was warned off by thugs in her community, who threatened to beat her bloody in order to set an example to other women who dared have contact with the training team -- US and Iraqi doctors, and female military officers.

But friends brought course materials back from the base and she worked hard at home, allowing her to graduate this week along with her classmates.

“Our neighbours were against us because it was an American programme,” said another graduate, Amal Hadi Abbas, who scored 28 out of 29 on the final exam.

The taster course does not turn out qualified professional nurses but covers a variety of skills so graduates can assist doctors and midwives.

The women learn to take temperatures and blood pressure, control infections and give artificial respiration or cardiac massage.

They study medication safety, female and community health issues and primary microbiology.

Afterwards, some will continue their training, but all have already learned something important in today’s lawless, violent, ultraconservative Iraq -- they’ve gained confidence and self-reliance.

Three sisters from the Abboud family took the course despite criticism and verbal threats, while Eman Ahmad, 26, came every day with her attentive eight-month-old daughter Tabarak, who got a “diploma” of her own.

“They were so brave to come,” said Ahlam Turki, an Iraqi-American doctor who came back to Iraq in 2005 and helped build the programme.

So pleased are the trainers that they’re planning a satellite programme with the support of a South Korean unit based in the northern city of Arbil in the autonomous Kurdish region. Other Iraqi centres are to follow.—AFP