Mission Statement
The mission of Iranian Alliances Across Borders (IAAB) is to strengthen the Iranian diaspora community and empower its youth. In particular, Iranian Alliances Across Borders strives to:- Raise awareness of the Iranian culture and community;
- Promote leadership in the Iranian diaspora community, with a specific focus on the younger generation; and
- Connect Iranians across a variety of borders.
Who We Are:
Iranian Alliances Across Borders is a volunteer organization with a young dedicated staff spread across the United States, Europe and Iran.Established in 2003 by students at Wellesley College and Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, Iranian Alliances Across Borders is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, non-partisan organization that addresses issues of the Iranian diaspora by facilitating community building, developing ways to better understand what it means to be part of a diaspora community, and helping members of the Iranian diaspora community enhance connections with their new communities as well as maintain connections with their root community.
Why We Exist
As Iranians in the diaspora continue to build roots in their new countries and a new generation of hyphenated Iranians--Iranian-Americans, British-Iranians, French-Iranians, etc.—enters their mid-twenties, the social and psychological implications of these new communities needs to be addressed. It is often said that Iranian-Americans are among the most successful minorities in the United States. If this is true, several questions need to be addressed:
- What are the implications of this "success"?
- How integrated and involved are Iranians in their new countries?
- Where are these communities now, how are they growing, and in what direction should they continue to grow?
- How important is knowledge of the Persian language for the second-generation, and what ties, if any, does this generation have with Iran?
- What types of alliances can be forged between Iranians in the various communities they now call home?
As hyphenated Iranians become further rooted in their new societies, it is important to analyze questions of identity and community formation. IAAB hopes to provide the environment and opportunity for our communities to engage these questions at the same time that we encourage the building of alliances across our various borders.
How We Achieve These Goals:
To date, Iranian Alliances Across Borders has held three very successful international conferences on the Iranian diaspora, the first in Boston, Massachusetts in 2004, the second in College Park, Maryland in 2005, and the third at New York University in 2007. Each of these conferences brought together over 300 scholars, journalists, politicians, artists, activists, lawyers, NGO leaders, and students from across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Iran to address the issues facing our communities-in-diaspora. In response to the issues raised at these conferences, we have developed a number of other projects addressing particular needs, such as the Iranian-American Leadership Camp (Camp Ayandeh), Essay Contest, seminars on Bam-related relief efforts, and Project Connection—an online resource center for students in our community to access information about internships in Iran. We encourage you to read about these and other future projects under the Projects section of this website.
