The 2026 Iraqi Young Leaders in Their Own Words

The vlogs are still being blurred for the teens’ privacy, but the above is just one example of the students’ work while in Kalamazoo.

The best record of what happened in Kalamazoo this July wasn't written by us. It was filmed by the students: five vlogs, narrated in a second language, walking us through a host family's garden, their workshops, their goodbyes. What follows is mostly theirs.

The introductions

The first vlog opens the way most teenage videos do: with a round of hellos.

"Hello everyone. My name is Zainal. I'm 17 years old. I'm [IYLEP] 2025, 2026."

"Hello, y'all. My name is Yahya. I'm 17 … I'm from Iraq, Kirkuk."

"Hi guys, my name is Amna. I'm 16 years old. I'm from Baghdad, Iraq."

Then the camera swings toward a backyard. "This is my host family house, and this is the garden here on the lake from the house. It's so, so pretty … Actually, we are really enjoying our time, so let's go."

"We are here to learn how to fix bicycles"

At Open Roads Bike Program, the students learned to use bike tools and to take a bicycle fully apart and put it back together. What stayed with them wasn't the mechanics.

"We worked in teams, and everyone had [a] job," one student narrated. "We helped each other and finished our work together. It was a fun experience, and I learned new skills that I can use in real life."

The same theme returned after a day in the studio at Public Media Network, where they learned how lighting and camera angles change a story, then shot something themselves. "We tried using the filming equipment and work[ed] it together to record a short video," a student explained. "We learned that making a good video needs practice, teamwork, and [creativity]."

You can hear a leadership curriculum in those sentences. Nobody handed it to them as a lesson plan.

The art workshop

One of the most striking moments is quiet. A student holds up a frame from a workshop at Colors and Cocktails and walks the camera through it: his grade that day, the name of the program, a star, his signature, the date.

Then he turns it over. "There is some Arabic poetry," he says, and reads it aloud. Then, to the adults off camera: "Mentors, you have to translate this. Sorry."

Thirteen days in Michigan, and what he put on the back of the workshop page was a poem from home.

Teaching, not just visiting

At a local summer camp with Kalamazoo Freedom School of Design, the students stopped being guests and became instructors, in a ‘global roundtable’ they shared facts about Iraq and taught American students Iraqi dances. "They were happy to learn new things," one participant reported, quietly describing the entire purpose of exchange.

It ran in other direction too. At Kalamazoo Kids in Tune (part of Kalamazoo Symphony), one of the teachers was Iraqi himself. He taught the students how to play Iraqi music, and they watched him perform: "[We] watched an amazing performance, and everyone enjoyed it."

The museum days move fast in the vlogs. Old clothes, hats, and tools: "It was so interesting to see how different life was many years ago." Dinosaurs. A planetarium: "We got to watch a cinema sky. It was so amazing." At the Air Zoo: "I enjoyed learning about airplanes in a fun way."

The goodbye

Near the end of one vlog, a student sits down with something she carried from Baghdad in her luggage: an Iraqi coffee mug, some Iraqi coffee, and a magazine about a famous Iraqi man known for his coffee. She hopes her host family members all like it. Then she thanks them for everything, and calls it "this simple gift to remind you of me."

She had packed it before she ever met the people she gave it to.

The final shot is at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. "So we are now in the Institute of Arts in Kalamazoo, and that's gonna be the end of our vlog. Thank you for watching, everyone."

What we owe them

Watch the vlogs back to back and the same words keep returning: together, each other, teamwork, everyone had a job. Alongside runs a second thread: what they brought. A poem in Arabic. Iraqi dances taught to American kids. A coffee mug carried across an ocean.

They came and taught, gave, built, and filmed, in a second language, in front of strangers who became host families. We hope what they found here strengthens the projects they launch back home.

Our connections have only just begun.

Learn more about the Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program at globaltieskzoo.org.