The program is funded by the United States Embassy in Baghdad, and implemented by the Academy for Educational Development.
Kazhal Khalid Ahmed, Shaynaa Ali Kahalid, Zinah Akram Mohammed, Sana Dara Mohammed and Shahed Raad Abbas are five of the 24 Iraqi students participating in the Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program - taking place at the University of Massachusetts this summer.AMHERST – Before coming to the United States, Zinah Akram Mohammed’s sense of life in America was that it was all about sex and money - a stereotype propagated by reality television shows pervasive in her native Iraq.
Now she knows that just shows such as “The Jersey Shore” offer a distortion of the real America. She also knows that Americans “don’t hate Islam, they don’t hate Iraqi people.” The United States invasion in 2003 was about politics, not about the people, she said. “All of us are the same. We have the same goals.”
Mohammed, who’s 20, is one of 48 in this country participating in the Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program - half are at the University of Massachusetts and half at the Virginia Commonwealth University. The focus for these college students here is to study the US public policy process.
The program is funded by the United States Embassy/Baghdad, and implemented by the Academy for Educational Development. This is the third time a group of Iraqis have come, said Michael Hannahan, director and founder of the Civic Initiative at the Donahue Institute. The Iraqi program is part of that.
And before the students leave next week, they want to leave something behind. They are hosting a dinner at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield Thursday at 6 p.m. to raise money for the Springfield Adolescent Health Center - a Baystate and Springfield partnership to provide health services to homeless and transient teens in that city.
This is the first such event the group has been involved in, Hannahan said. Many of those here are studying sciences and this benefit is a way to bring in public policy as well, he said.
The students will talk about what it’s like back home what they have learned from their visit here.
Those here have come from all over Iraq, some who witnessed the 2003 American invasion first hand and some who were relatively inured in northern Kurdistan.
But they all wanted to study in America to see the country and the culture for themselves. Hannahan said 1,000 applied and for some simply applying is dangerous although the danger is diminishing from what it was when the first program began. Some don’t like that Iraqi’s are in America.
The students themselves said there were not afraid to come, even if their experience with American soldiers there was in inauspicious. Shahed Raad Abbas of Babylon said the soldiers were rude.
Mohammed had been living in Baghdad during the initial invasion. Her brother had to be sent away to be protected. She said she had to be driven one block to school because of the danger. In 2006 her family fled north. She hopes to return to Baghdad.
Taher Abdair, 21, who is from Kut said in the beginning everyone was “very happy to be free of Saddam Hussein.” But he said since he’s gone “terrorism is worse,” the promised development is not happening. “We are very disappointed.”
The provincial council of Kut city, the center of southern Iraq’s Wassit province last month voted for the withdrawal of US forces from the city. According to news accounts, council members said that the US forces have committed many crimes in the city like arresting civilians without an arrest warrant from Iraqi justice system.
But despite what’s happening in his country, Mohammed Wadhah Ibrahim, 25, said “We love America.” He said there have been some mistakes but overall his feelings are good. In Iraq, he worked for the United States as a translator and heard of repeated corruption with projects that never get built or the price tag being inflated with politicians pocketing the excess. But he said that the USAID, for which he also worked, was more successful. That is an independent federal government agency.
People in many parts of Iraq still struggle with the things like electricity they only get a few hours per day and have to use both personal and neighborhood generators and the price is costly. Also they said the water is not safe to drink so they have to buy bottled water. Thinking about basic survival cuts into the time they can spend on other things, Zinah Mohammed said, like sharing stories about their culture.
The students, meanwhile, are organizing their presentation they will give in Springfield Thursday night while Hannahan works on the fund-raising piece. Abdair said, “we are happy to help.”
Hannahan said in Iraq most of the assistance comes from families or the government and the idea of fundraising like this or volunteering is not all that common. But this is something they can learn about and bring back, he said.
“We want America to know our true colors,” Zinah Mohammed said by what they’re trying to do. “We don’t hate Americans.”
For more information about tickets or to donate - call Tom Fricke, the Iraqi program coordinator at 413-345-4462.