Who: 100 Iraqi students in the Iraq Young Leaders Exchange Program (IYLEP) sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and administered by World Learning, worldlearning.org.
What: IYLEP is a four-week summer exchange program that brings English-speaking Iraqi students to the U.S. to learn about leadership development, civic rights and responsibilities, respect for diversity, and community engagement. Students must implement a service project in their community when they return home.
IYLEP students were selected for this highly competitive, national program after a vigorous application and review process. The group includes Sunni, Shia and Kurdish Iraqi high school students who do not know one another, with one goal of the program being to foster understanding and relationships between people of different ethnic and religious groups.
Students will learn about U.S. culture, networking, digital etiquette and community mapping, while getting to know one another and touring campus, touring Detroit and visiting the Arab American National Museum.
IYLEP students will interact with Wayne State students and meet with leaders from numerous student organizations while on campus.
Where: Wayne State University was selected by World Learning to host the orientation for the month-long IYLEP program, providing participants with their first glimpse of America and university life. After a few days living at Wayne State, the students will be divided into smaller groups that go on to four schools:
- University of Arkansas
- University of Massachusetts at Amherst
- University of Montana
- Washington State University
The program is being hosted by Wayne State’s Office of International Programs, which leads Wayne State’s global engagement by creating opportunities that foster international education and research, facilitate the exchange of individuals and ideas that promote global competencies and citizenship, and provide resources that support the expansion of the university’s global agenda.
When: July 7–9, 2017