WSU seeks more host families for Iraqi students program in July

Inside their large hilltop home on Greyhound Way, Bobbie Ryder and Karl Johanson signed their names to a document Wednesday declaring their home will be used to house undergraduate Iraqi students for two weekends in July.

They are the first family that Cheryl Hansen, Washington State University’s director of international outreach and partnerships, has approved to host students from the Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program this summer. The students will participate in a two-week conference at WSU.

The university’s Office of International Programs is in search of other such families or individuals to host 25 students from the program, sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and administered by World Learning, a WSU partner.

Hansen said more than 6,000 Iraqi undergraduate students applied, though only 100 were chosen to participate.

Last September, it was announced WSU was one of four universities chosen for the program, which runs July 14-23.

Host families provide housing the weekends of July 14-16 and July 21-23. The students will be housed at WSU in between those dates. The families will be expected to provide the students with transportation to and from campus and three full meals a day, in addition to attending host family orientation and providing living accommodations that give the students a chance to connect with U.S. culture.

The focus of the conference here will be public health, specifically violence prevention, Hansen said.

At the universities of Montana; Massachusetts, Amherst; and Arkansas the focus, respectively, will be on environmental and historical preservation, public administration and science and technology.

WSU activities will include leadership and entrepreneurial spirit, civic education and responsibility, peace building and conflict transformation, diversity and tolerance, and social media and information technology.

This is the first time WSU has been involved with the program, Hansen said, but it will submit applications for next year.

Hansen said many of the students participating in the program were born between 1995 and 1999.

“If you just look at the timeline in Iraq, they have never not known war of some kind and economic hardship,” Hansen said.

On Jan. 27, President Donald Trump’s executive order suspended travel to the U.S. by citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iraq.

“We were shocked with the election results, and then when we started hearing the executive orders, and the impact to immigration,” Hansen said, adding that she and members of the Department of International Programs were sick about the effects on the program.

After speaking with World Learning, which administers the program, Hansen said they decided to move forward as if nothing had happened.

“And thank goodness we did,” Hansen said.

The executive order was eventually shot down by federal courts before a new executive order was issued, this time excluding Iraq from the list.

Ryder and Johanson said through their hosting experience, they hope to get to know about the students’ lives and aspirations. Ryder hopes the students get a positive image of the U.S.

“I don’t know that, internationally, we’ve been doing real great recently,” Ryder said. “We have amends to make.”

“We’re all on this big ship together,” she said, “and how are we going to celebrate our differences as well as our similarities.”

Those interested in hosting a student should contact IYLEP program assistant Amber Ronhaar at amber.ronhaar@wsu.edu for an application.

Taylor Nadauld can be reached at (208) 883-4630, by email to tnadauld@dnews.com and on Twitter @tnadauldarg.