Insight Into Diversity Features ISP's Story  The Iraqi Student Project: Helping Refugees from a War-Torn Country Get a College Education   By Michael Rainey

ISP Newsletter
Read stories from members of the ISP Student Body--and other news.

Art: A Bridge To Baghdad
Zainab is an Iraqi artist. While visiting her son (an ISP student) in the US, she created several ceramic sculptures. They were left in the care of the DePaul ISP Support Group with the hope that they could be used to raise awareness of the Iraqi Student Project. We are actively seeking venues for display and will gratefully entertain requests from colleges, libraries or galleries.  Read more . . .

What We Owe the Iraqis: Looking Back on the Iraq War
August 26, 2010
A reminder that Iraqi refugees still need our help, even after the official end of the Iraq War, by Gabe Huck and Theresa Kubasak, founders of the Iraqi Student Project.

Iraqi student's education goes far beyond Goucher
February 21, 2010
An in-depth article on Ahmed, an Iraqi student at Goucher College.

Repairers of the Breach
September/October 2009
A program that educates Iraqi students in the U.S. is helping to rebuild Iraq, one student at a time, by Rosalie Riegle.

"Educating Iraqi Refugees on a Shoestring"
October 24, 2009
An article by Alessandra Manfre about the Iraqi Student Project.

Goucher College Supports the Iraqi Student Project
September 16, 2009
Goucher welcomes Ahmed, a first-year biology student.

Casa Maria Gets Help to Help Others
May 6, 2009
Carlo Giombi, a junior at Marquette University and member of the Iraqi Student Project, led a team of volunteers Saturday at Casa Maria, a Catholic Worker House.

A Young Iraqi Finds Welcome at Dominican University
December 14, 2008
When Farah Abrahim first heard of the Iraqi Student Project, she thought it had to be a joke. "My friends said to check it out, but I wasn't sure," said Abrahim, 24, who finished her first semester at San Rafael's Dominican University last week. "I thought it was a scam - like one of those things people send you on the Internet."

UE is chance for Iraqi student
August 27, 2008
Abdulmajeed, 21, begins his first day of classes at the University of Evansville today. He was a 15-year-old high school student when the Iraq war began — March 20, 2003.

College interrupted: Project aids Iraqis
June 29, 2008
The Iraqi Student Project, a group of educators and activists in the U.S. and the Mideast, will bring about 20 Iraqi students to 15 American universities to continue the educations they had to leave behind. One will attend Manchester College in North Manchester.

AUDIO
Learning to Rebuild
December 28, 2009
“A grassroots non-profit called the Iraqi Student Project, run by two Americans based in Syria,helped 14 displaced Iraqi students study at U.S. colleges last school year—it’s helping 21 morestudents this year. It arranges tuition waivers, raises funds for living expenses, and organizes asupport network of people to help the Iraqi students negotiate life in America. One of these students started his freshman year at Goucher College in Towson in August—Sheilah talked to him in September. His name is Ahmed. They were joined by Alessandra Manfre, director of the Iraqi Student Project Baltimore.”
local-wypr-861325.mp3

The Iraqi Roadtrip Radio Project
August 2009
Narrators Fouad, 19, and Ahmed, 18, are from Baghdad and were forced to flee Iraq after militia threats. For the past two years they've been living in Syria, where they joined the Iraqi Student Project. The ISP is an American organization that helps young Iraqis whose education has been interrupted by war to study in the States, where colleges give them a free education if they can score high enough on their English entry tests. This piece is based on an project completed by ISP students for a writing class.

Project Aims to Bring Iraqi Students to U.S. Colleges
June 4, 2008
Among the casualties of the war in Iraq have been students and academics. Hundreds of professors have been killed, and sectarian violence has kept thousands of students from going to local universities. The Iraqi Student Project, a program founded last year by educators in the United States and Syria, is now working to relocate some of those Iraqi students to American colleges. However, even the idea of bringing in a handful of these students has met with some resistance.

Iraqi Student Solidarity Committee
May 23, 2008
It's been called the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of algebra, modern medicine and astronomy. Yet modern-day Iraq can no longer educate most of its young people. A group in the U.S. called the Iraqi Student Project is trying to help - by securing tuition waivers at colleges and universities here. And it looks like The Evergreen State College in Olympia will be one of the first state schools in the nation to take part. A group of students there has been working hard to make it possible for a counterpart from Bagdad to start attending Evergreen this fall.

Overseas Education
March 21, 2009
There are more than a million Iraqi refugees in Syria. Many of them are young and now facing the question: where can they attend college, and how can they afford it? An American couple is helping these college-bound young people find a way to get an education here in the U.S. Will Everett reports from Damascus.

VIDEO
Iraqi Voices Amplification Project
November 5, 2009
The Iraqi Voices Amplification Project team journeyed from Damascus, Syria, south to the ancient city of Bosra. The team was accompanied by a group of young adults from the Iraqi Student Project.

Happy Birthday Pete Seeger!
May 3, 2009
Iraqi student Taif Jany gives Pete Seeger a gift: the words to the famous Woody Guthrie song"This Land is Your Land", as adapted by Iraqi refugee students in Damascus, Syria. The occasionis Pete Seeger's 90th birthday celebration, May Day 2009, with friends and local musicians atthe Beacon Sloop Club on the Hudson River. The audience sings along with Pete and Taif, arefugee from Baghdad. Taif, now attending Union College in Schenectady, NY, is part of the Iraqi Student Project.

Notes for Peace
March 27, 2009
A group of the Iraqi college students that FLYP followed this fall gathered in New York last weekfor a benefit concert featuring performances by The Kinan Azmeh Quartet (led by Syriansuperstar Azmeh and Karam Salem, a pianist and member of the Iraqi Student Project (ISP)who is currently studying at Holy Cross College.

Coming to America: From Damascus to the Dorm
January 30-Feb 12, 2009
A film interviewing Taif and Farah, two Iraqi students currently studying in the United States,providing insight into the personal side of the Iraqi Student Project.

Coming to America: Families Split Apart
January 30-Feb 12, 2009
To protect their visa status, the ISP students are discouraged from leaving the U.S. for fouryears. Meet some of the parents and children who are making the sacrifice of living separately.

Iraqi Student Project Winter Gathering
January 19, 2009
Fourteen Iraqi students gather in South Bend Indiana over the winter holidays to share reflections on their experiences from their first semester in colleges across the United States.

IRAQI REFUGEE Ikhlass
 January 11, 2009
The American occupation of Iraq has had catastrophic costs for the Iraqi people, destroyingtheir everyday lives, their security and their future. The UNHCR estimates that 5 million Iraqishave been displaced by the war. More than 1.3 million Iraqis are now living in Syria, many ofthem in neighborhoods of Damascus.

The filmmakers journeyed to Damascus in 2008 to collect interviews with some of these Iraqirefugees, returning six months later for followup interviews. This is the first in a series of shortfilms introducing audiences to the individual stories of Iraqi families broken by the war."Iraqi Refugee Ikhlass" focuses on one Iraqi survivor and her two young daughters. Ihklassrecounts the tragic story that determined her fate as a refugee, and speaks out against theAmerican occupiers who destroyed her world. This surviving small family continues to seekresettlement in a third country.