Meridian Collaborates with the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to Host: “From IYLEP to IMPACT: Iraqis Making Positive Achievements in their Communities Together”
Meridian International Center collaborated with the U.S. Embassy, Baghdad to implement the 2013 Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program (IYLEP) for both high school and undergraduate students between the ages of 15 and 24. This summer program was designed to provide talented, hard-working, and highly motivated Iraqi students a four-to-five-week opportunity to study at an intensive academic institute throughout the United States.
This February, the IYLEP Class of 2013 High School and Undergraduate students will get the chance to reunite and reconnect in Erbil, Iraq at two reunion conferences hosted by the U.S. Embassy, Baghdad and Meridian International Center. The IYLEP High School Reunion will take place from February 5-8, 2014 and the IYLEP Undergraduate Reunion will take place from February 12- 15, 2014.
In addition to reuniting 32 high school students and 94 undergraduate students almost half a year later, it gives the students an opportunity to hear about the new and exciting achievements individuals have brought to their own community after attending the IYLEP program. The goal of this IYLEP 2013 Reunion is to continue to make an IMPACT—Iraqis Making Positive Achievements in their Communities Together.
Since their return to Iraq at the end of last summer, IYLEP alums have taken incredible initiative in starting new volunteer projects and professional development associations. Numerous alums from both high school and undergraduate programs have taken action on the crisis in neighboring Syria, organizing collection drives for school supplies and winter coats to send to refugee groups. Syrian refugees faced an especially cold winter throughout the region, and IYLEP students moved quickly to help any way they could.
Building off the professional networking skills they learned in trainings last summer, several IYLEP undergraduate alumni combined their efforts to help establish an Iraqi branch of the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations. The group helps young professionals connect with each other and with established, practicing doctors. Utilizing their experience organizing non-profit social media campaigns for local organizations during IYLEP, others have started free community libraries in northern Iraq.
With such a successful amount of projects and self-development in just six months, The IYLEP Reunion will not only re-connect students with the IYLEP network, but also provide forums for discussion to exchange stories – challenges and successes – of community engagement since returning home, and build on the skills students developed during the U.S. program that will motivate them to become more effective change-makers in their communities.
Meridian International Center has teamed up with the Iraq Foundation, a non-governmental organization that promotes democracy, human rights, and civil society, to implement a variety of workshops.
