The IRC is preparing to launch programmes for displaced Iraqis in Northern and Central Iraq. The Emergency Response Team's Alan Manski was in the northern city of Erbil, in Iraq's Kurdish region, last week to assess the needs of the displaced and look for programme opportunities and potential Iraqi partners. Mansky will also renew the IRC's registration as a humanitarian organisation with the Iraqi government and open an office.

Manski said the majority of displaced Iraqis have fled north because of ongoing violence and threats and that they are struggling to get by with dwindling resources.

With support from the Iraqi Ministry of Education, three schools in Erbil have opened their doors to displaced children, Manski said. For one school that Manski visited on Thursday, that gesture has meant a quadrupling of the student population. "The kids are going in shifts and still the small classrooms are overflowing," Manski said. He said the IRC is looking into the possibility of offering support to the three schools. The IRC is also looking into program possibilities in the northern cities of Sulaymaniyah and Dihok.

Meanwhile, the IRC has signed partnership agreements with two Iraqi organisations, The Iraqi Youth League and the NGO Coordinating Committee, an umbrella organisation that provides information and coordination to more than 200 Iraqi aid groups and dozens of international organisations.

Working with the Iraqi Youth League, the IRC will fund development of two community centres north of Baghdad, one in a Shia neighborhood and one in a Sunni area. The centres will provide a range of programmes, including assistance for traumatised children and counseling and job training for women.

The IRC last worked in Iraq from 2003 through early 2006.