With less than 72 hours to go until the commencement of IAAB’s Fourth International Conference, the rise in IAAB’s energy is definitely palpable – I can feel it through our gchats, phone calls, texts, BBM messages, emails and all the other technology that we use to keep our geographically-dispersed staff as a cohesive whole.

Personally, the conference and the PR, marketing and media surrounding it have occupied a lot of my thoughts and energy in the last few weeks – particularly in the last few days. As I was packing my bag for the trip, I found myself growing more and more excited at seeing the rest of the staff. I also found myself thinking about the prospect of the unknown at the conference. There are going to be so many extraordinary speakers and panelists assembled this weekend that I’m confident there will be no shortage of amazing insights, ideas and dialogue to take something away from. I am so impressed with my IAAB colleagues for gathering so many amazing people to partake in our conference, and I can’t wait to see what comes out of it.

The IAAB International Conference has never disappointed me. Before IAAB was IAAB, before the thought of getting involved in this organization even entered my head, I unwittingly attended the Saturday Night Entertainment portion of the First International Conference in Boston. I’m proud of IAAB for staying true to its mission and its roots, and consistently showcasing new Iranian talent to the Iranian community – from Haaleh in 2004, to Maz Jobrani in 2005, to Hypernova and the Abjeez in 2007 – all of these talents have gone on to do amazing things and achieve greater levels of recognition in our community, and I’m sure that Fared Shafinury, Tehranosaurus and Sholi will not disappoint.  We are very lucky to have multiple groups collaborating with us (PAAIA, Shabeh Jomeh), and multiple talents who want to perform at our event. It’s a further testament to the growth and the power of our organization, and as we branch out into the West Coast, we can only go up from here.

I’ve expressed my excitement about a lot of things in this post, but above all, I’m excited at the prospect of seeing many new faces at our event this weekend. The conference can’t come soon enough – and I hope to see you there!!!

Be omideh didar,

Sherry

p.s. – Please REGISTER so that we know to expect you!!!

Hello Everyone!

My name is Nakkisa Akhavan, and this year I am the Director of the Fourth International Conference on the Iranian Diaspora. It’s 9 days until our conference kicks off, so we are all working hard to make sure every detail is in place! However, I wanted to take some time out from all the work to update all of our supporters on our program. This year, our conference is at UC Berkeley’s Pauley Ballroom in Berkeley, CA on April 4-5, 2009.

This conference will be the first of IAAB’s programs to happen on the West Coast. As a Bay Area native, I can’t tell you how exciting it is for me to be able to plan one of our events out on this coast! We’ve put together an amazing schedule with some really incredible speakers. We have seven (!!) panels, two small group workshop periods, performances, and videos. It’s incredible how we were able to fit it all into two days! IAAB always strives to think outside the box, to create programs that we have yet to see elsewhere. I think this conference does just that: we have innovative panels on the media, on cultural production, and on challenging established views. We’re also very excited to be hosting a roundtable discussion with some of the Iranian-American community’s leaders to gain some insight into their successes and advice for the community.

Our Saturday night event also promises to be a success. We are lucky to have Fared Shafinury &Tehranosaurus and Sholi performing live at Pauley Ballroom at 8 PM on Saturday, April 4. After the performances, IAAB is hosting a night of dancing with DJ Aykut at Cossu Restaurant, Bar and Lounge in San Francisco until 2 AM.

We are excited both by our unprecedented programming, as well as by the unprecedented support the community has given us. We are lucky enough to be hosted by UC Berkeley’s Iranian Student Alliance in America and have the support of UC Berkeley’s Iranian Students’ Cultural Organization, both helping us to make our program as successful as possible. And with PAAIA and IABA as primary sponsors of the conference, and groups such as Persian Center, Persian Mirror, Kodoom Events, and NIAC also supporting us, we are sure that this year will be an incredible conference.

Registration is limited and on a first-come, first-served basis, so we hope that you will register on our website today and that you will join us as we hold our Fourth International Conference on the Iranian Diaspora!

Dear friends, family, and supporters of IAAB:

Hello! My name is Raha and I am one of the incredibly fortunate individuals to hold a staff position with IAAB this year. It is an exciting time for our organization, which seems to have grown leaps and bounds in mere months. With our Fourth International Conference on the Iranian Diaspora fast approaching, we are all as staff members feeling the excitement that comes with seeing our efforts manifest themselves into an amazing event that is sure to inspire and affect many. If you have not already done so, I urge to you register for the conference. With panels focusing on cultural expression amongst diaspora members and the perspectives of Iranians around the globe, and an incredible night of music featuring Fareed Shafinury and Tehranosaurus, you are sure to have an insightful and rewarding experience.

But now I would like to take a moment to give all of our fellow supporters a sneak peak into some very very exciting plans in IAAB’s future programming. In a matter of months, IAAB will be launching a new project entitled “Bayaan: Expressions of the Iranian Diaspora” to celebrate the individual and creative voices of young diaspora members all around the world. Some of you may be familiar with IAAB’s past essay contests which gave young Iranians the opportunity to express themselves through the written word and also compete for a scholarship to our increasingly popular Camp Ayandeh. Well, we are taking the essay contest several steps further!

We believe that there are artists amongst us all with fascinating and worthwhile stories to share. If you are a high school, undergraduate or graduate student we invite you, through our newest project, to share your personal perspective and unique vision with the world through your art, be it written expression, visual art, music, film, or all of the above! Through Bayaan, we hope to bring together the creative voices of the Iranian diaspora and include these artistic works in a print publication that can be read, shared, referred to for years to come and that will showcase the talent and critical awareness of our young diaspora community.

So please do stay tuned for “Bayaan”; we cannot wait to see your work and wish you a joyful and delightful start to the new year!

Hey guys!

First off, I just wanted to introduce myself.  My name is Reza Rad and it’s my first year as an IAAB staff member.  I began working for IAAB in the fall, and I’ve enjoyed every second of it so far.  This past President’s day weekend, I spent time with my fellow coworkers for our winter staff meeting.  At first I was unsure how the experience would be, but as the weekend unraveled, I realized that I was wrong for questioning the experience.  Afterwards, my parents had enormous praise for our organization.

The staff meeting went extremely well, as it was both a great time to see everyone and it was very productive.  Each member of IAAB worked on their specific projects, as well as interacted with other projects to make progress.  The Camp team worked on the curriculum for this summer’s upcoming Camp Ayandeh (applications are up for campers and counselors!)  and the International Conference (less than one month away!).  Well, I hope to see you all in a month at the conference!

Hi Everyone!

I am new to IAAB this year and have been having a great time working with the amazing staff. I’m excited to tell you all about IAAB’s next project coming up! We are co-sponsoring the International Conference on the Iranian Diaspora, to be held in April at UC Berkeley with the Iranian Student Alliance in America (ISAA). The conference will address a wide range of topics, and also provide a medium for scholars, students, media, and other members of the community to network. We decided to bring a great number of speakers from the Call for Papers so that the community could show us what is important. This worked out great, and we were thrilled to have an unprecedented number of outstanding submissions on a wide range of topics. We spent hours at our winter staff meeting deciding speakers and performers, which will be announced shortly, so I can’t give details yet! In addition to the conference, we will be hosting a performer in the SF area on Saturday night. All of this is so exciting and registration is open now so sign up! I hope to see you all in April!

Hello Everyone!

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Omeed Askari, the Development Associate for IAAB. I hope you have been reading and enjoying our new blog, appropriately named the IAABLOG, that we recently launched after our last staff meeting in Washington, DC.

Speaking of our last staff meeting, I have a wonderful story to share. One night after the staff had worked tirelessly all day, we decided to go out for a wonderful Persian dinner.  We packed up and drove to a great Persian restaurant in the area. Several of our D.C.-based campers had heard we were in town and decided to join us for dinner. It was a wonderful night, and we were so very happy to see them. It made waiting for Camp Ayandeh 2009 that much harder!

Now, the reason I’ve titled this post “Thank You!” is because we received an extremely heartwarming e-mail from a parent whose son, a 2008 Camp Ayandeh alum, was with us at dinner that night. He thanked us for making that night so memorable for his son. I was so touched that something so simple as a group dinner could make such an impact and make a difference not only for the campers that were there with us, but also for their parents. I smiled wide when I read what the camper’s parent wrote,

“I’m truly happy to see IAAB’s presence in our community and believe you really make a big difference.”

I’m proud to be volunteering for an organization that has such a positive impact on the community. I would like to take a moment and thank that parent and our community overall for their kindness, enthusiasm, and continued encouragement. Without our community, IAAB would not exist. Over last five years, IAAB has been honored by the continued support of generous individuals and organizations.

IAAB has made great progress and we are now growing faster than ever before, but we still need your help. As we celebrate IAAB’s fifth birthday throughout the month of February, please take a moment to support us by visiting our Support page and making a donation of any amount. Your assistance will help facilitate IAAB’s growth and success. Donations are 100% tax-deductable and, since IAAB has an all-volunteer staff, your donation goes directly to our projects.

Warmest regards,

Omeed

Hi Everyone!

This is so exciting- IAAB’s first blog! Hope this finds you all well & enjoying your week. We are just a couple days out of our productive Winter Staff Meeting, and we’re all working hard towards and getting excited for the Conference at UC Berkley in April- we hope to see you all there!

You can now check out IAAB on Twitter! Visit http://twitter.com/IAABsays to start following us. Don’t have a Twitter account? It’s easy to sign up, and a fun way to stay connected with family, friends, and organizations that interest you.

More to come soon!

Dear Friends and Supporters, We are excited to report that our February Fundraiser, celebrating IAAB’s Fifth Birthday, is off to a great start. With two weeks left, we still need your help to achieve our goal of raising $ 10,000. The success of our projects largely depends on the generosity and support of our community and its members. Your 100% tax-deductible contributions will directly fund both Camp Ayandeh and the Fourth International Conference on the Iranian Diaspora.

Thank you for strengthening IAAB’s foundation in the last five years; we hope to achieve unprecedented success in the coming years. Please click here to contribute to IAAB’s Fifth Birthday.

Warmest regards,
Kayvan Farchadi & Mana Kharrazi
Executive Directors
IAAB 2008-2009

Welcome to the IAAB blog…or, be ghole Irooni-ha, befarmaeed, khosh amadid…IAAB has officially entered the blogging world.

One of our underlying goals in recreating our website was to create a more interactive platform for us to communicate with our community. IAAB’s mission centers largely around connecting Iranians, and that includes connecting ourselves to you!

What we hope to do with this blog is provide you – our friends, supporters, and community – with a little more insight into who we are as a staff, and what our organization does on a more personal level. We invite you to check back to this blog periodically, as we hope to have blogs posted by various members of our organization fairly frequently.  More than that, however, we hope that you will also take this opportunity to learn more about us and to provide us with your opinions and express your thoughts. A community is only as strong as its members, and what we hope to accomplish as an organization is not possible without you. So please, share your thoughts – we’d love to hear from you.

IAAB has several great programs coming up, including the Fourth International Conference on the Iranian Diaspora and Camp Ayandeh 2009. We’ll post updates here about our projects, organizational progress and personal experiences as IAAB staffers. We hope to see you here again soon!

Warmest wishes,
Sherry