IYLEP 2014 Kicks Off in New York City

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Students signed a commemorative poster with the program’s rallying cry ‘I learn, I lead, IYLEP’ to mark the beginning of an exciting program.

“I learn, I lead, IYLEP!” This was the rallying cry at the opening conference for IYLEP 2014 last weekend in New York City. IYLEP, which stands for the Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program, is an intercultural and educational exchange initiative funded by the U.S. Embassy-Baghdad and administered by Meridian International Center for the sixth consecutive year. While the students will spend most of the program in the U.S. at five American universities focusing on varying institute themes, New York City provided the perfect venue for the participants’ first weekend in the United States. Designed as a four-week summer program for...

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Water: A World Crisis Too Big To Ignore

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International Visitor Leadership Program participants discuss water resource protection.

Water scarcity is a global issue and soon every region of the world will have to face the challenges it brings. Pollution is tainting the already dwindling freshwater supply we have left and arid and urbanizing areas are overusing water at high rates.   A dwindling supply Irrigation and agricultural uses are the biggest divergences for freshwater supplies followed by household and industrial usage. Ninety-six percent of the world’s freshwater resources are in difficult-to-access glaciers in the North and South Poles. This remaining 4% is found in groundwater, land glacier, and surface water resources. Of these other resources, the...

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Local Reporting on a Global Scale

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Meeting with Ms. Christy Hoppe, Austin Bureau Chief of the Dallas Morning News to discuss covering politics at the state level and competition from on-line news outlets.

The world if fast shrinking and nowadays, local news is global news. Humans have become a species of globetrotters and seeking to explore new horizons and visit every corner of this Earth. At the same time we are also very local and want to know first what is going on in our own backyards or in our hometowns. Newspapers around the world and in the United States in particular have had to re-learn how to become more local while at the same time learning how to adapt and survive in this highly competitive digital revolution.In May of this year, Meridian...

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Gaming for Change: 10 Digital Games Impacting our World

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International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) project on Social Change Through the Arts explores social impact gaming.

Playing games can change the world.

A pretty bold statement, but that’s precisely the idea behind organizations such as Games for Change, a company that facilitates the creation and distribution of games used as tools in humanitarian and educational efforts. These aren’t just any games, they are “social impact games” designed to present social issues in a way that is uniquely engaging and easy to understand, especially for students and young people.
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