About Us

IAAB's Educational Philosophy

IAAB’s educational philosophy is based on over eight years of working directly with youth in the Iranian American community. IAAB’s philosophy is informed by an open, democratic, and participatory model of leadership, one that is grounded in diversity and a deep sense of collaboration. IAAB programs promote the notion of a community of learners in which empowerment is never top-down, but occurs in an environment where all participants take on the roles of teachers and learners. IAAB therefore considers inter-generational mentorship and collaboration as an especially meaningful context for youth development.

In each of its educational programs, IAAB strives to build a positive and inclusive environment that allows young Iranian Americans to develop leadership skills, foster strong friendships, and gain a deeper understanding of culture and identity. IAAB recognizes that the Iranian American community is diverse and vibrant, a characteristic that IAAB represents, embraces, and celebrates in its ethos and in each of its programs. IAAB therefore develops programs that invite young Iranian Americans to reflect on their shared history and their place in the Iranian diaspora, while working to build solidarity across difference. Through cultural, historical, and artistic workshops, community building activities, and critical discussions, IAAB’s educational programs assist students in identifying and developing responses to the issues they see affecting young people in the Iranian American community. This includes working together to interrogate negative images, construct more humanizing narratives, and practice various forms of leadership.

For IAAB, leaders are speakers, organizers, facilitators, and mentors, as well as writers, listeners, friends, artists, thinkers, historical and everyday actors. Leaders embody a sense of responsibility and service towards others. This quality is evident in the ways IAAB program participants consistently take on new leadership roles, working to share the tools and understandings developed through IAAB programs with younger members of the Iranian American community. Leaders ask questions about the world as it is and work to build the world as it could be.

In this spirit, IAAB also aims to situate our Iranian American experiences in a broader historical and global context, generating dialogue with other immigrant and diasporic communities. Through IAAB programs, students engage with the rich histories of communities of color in the United States as well the struggles of immigrant and diasporic communities the world over. IAAB encourages students to access and take control of their narratives, to learn their histories, and to affirm their transcultural identities.

Ultimately, IAAB seeks to develop a safe and supportive environment for young people to make sense of their shared experiences and stretch into new roles and practices. IAAB then works with students to brainstorm ways of taking these tools and experiences back to their communities, to create new spaces that ripple out beyond IAAB. IAAB also recognizes that as young people become actively involved in our programs, they bring new strengths and insights that help IAAB continue to grow and evolve. This is reflected in the new programs, workshops, and networks initiated by IAAB student leaders.

Students who go through IAAB’s programs leave with a stronger sense of self, history, agency, and community, developing lifelong friendships and the necessary skills to lead both inside and outside of the Iranian diaspora community. As an organization that privileges youth, IAAB emphasizes and works to cultivate the potential of every young person, and the potential of the broader Iranian diaspora community.

Our History

Eight years ago in a shisha bar in London, we started talking about what we, as young Iranians in the diaspora, wished for our community. That casual conversation between two junior year abroad students in May 2003 grew into IAAB’s First International Conference on the Iranian Diaspora in May 2004, and ultimately the organization we celebrate today. After our first conference, some were already describing IAAB as having started a movement. What seemed implausible in 2004 is today truly materializing in the impact IAAB is having in our community. From helping shape an open-minded, communicative Iranian diaspora to getting our youth involved and empowered, IAAB’s progress has exponentially gained momentum in the last eight years.

In our student experience in London we were surrounded by like-minded hyphenated Iranians from the United States, Finland, Italy, Sweden, and Germany. This diverse Iranian environment encouraged us to be particularly thoughtful about the Iranian-American student experience in Boston (where we were returning for our senior years) versus London. We discovered that we both felt a strong need for more opportunities for Iranians to connect and self-reflect back in the US and we decided that we were in a position to do something about that. Importantly, we wanted to create a critical, but open, environment to look at our community and who we are—we wanted to move away from clichés and seek out young Iranians pushing the boundaries.

The immediate challenges were: what to focus on, where to get the money, and what to call ourselves. To explain how all of these were overcome would require many pages, but suffice to say that by reaching out to our schools for financial support, friends and family for advice on developing and communicating our message, and looking inward to our own skills and strengths, we tapped a largely undeveloped potential in the topic of the Iranian diaspora. The concept of diaspora immediately became something close to our hearts because it was about what we were experiencing.

In the history of IAAB there has been an undercurrent of looking outward to what is needed in the community around us, inward at what we can provide that is unique and will have an impact, while pooling together all the resources we can and holding the highest expectations of ourselves to provide the best quality organization possible. In its first two years, IAAB’s staff included students from six universities along the east coast of the United States, eventually growing into a staff of 25 from over 20 universities across the country.

In 2006, IAAB saw potential in creating a camp for Iranian-Americans, which has since impacted more than 1000 Iranian-American high school leaders in five years. Like many IAAB programs, the first camp drew a smaller group than the turnout we see today, but that initial session’s quality and success soon caught the attention of many, doubling attendance the following year. From Camp Ayandeh came the idea of the Student Summit, a forum for college and graduate student leaders to engage with one another, enhance their leadership training through IAAB’s unique approach to identity and leadership, and plan for a more cohesive community.

As a young organization run by young people, in IAAB we often find ourselves facing the challenge of proving ourselves to outsiders that don’t quite know why we are necessary for Iranian-Americans or why we would make such sacrifices for a cause. But we continue to demonstrate to our community, donors, friends, other organizations, and the media that our combination of passion, vision, and commitment to quality makes us invaluable for our Iranian diaspora community.

Being in IAAB is about making an impact and continuing that conversation that started in 2003 about a community vision - one that we work to crystallize and actualize each year.

~ Narges Bajoghli and Nikoo Paydar

Founders

* Photo credit: Jonathan Timmes, Northern Virginia Magazine

Our Accomplishments

IAAB addresses the most current issues facing the Iranian diaspora as identified by members of the diaspora. To that end, IAAB:

• created Camp Ayandeh in 2006, the much celebrated summer leadership camp for high school students;
• organized the Student Summit, a gathering of Iranian-American student leaders across U.S. university campuses;
• held four very successful International Conferences on the Iranian diaspora (2004, 2005, 2007, 2009);
• curated “Transform/Nation,” a collection of Iranian and Iranian diaspora art held simultaneously in Tehran, Iran and Washington, D.C. (2007);
• worked in conjunction with the Iranian Studies Group (ISG) @ MIT in creating Project Connection (2004-2008), an online resource center for students in our community to access information about internships in Iran, and much more.
• conducted Essay Contests, inspiring many beautifully reflective pieces from Iranian diaspora youth worldwide (2006, 2008);
• held Bam and Beyond Seminars on Bam-related relief efforts (New York: 2004 and Tehran: 2005) about the role of diaspora and international organizations in relief efforts in Iran in response to natural disasters.

The issues that IAAB recognizes and seeks to address are identified through our ongoing involvement in the community. The need for a program like Camp Ayandeh was identified through the first International Conference on the Diaspora, held in Boston, Massachusetts in 2004.  The conference, Camp Ayandeh, Student Summit, and other projects have all helped us identify and address the issues facing our community.