Local teenager travels to Jordan

JOHN CASSIL

American and Iraqi youth, including the 13 pictured here at Mount Nebo, took a break from formal discussion and planning to travel to two of Jordan's historical sites, Mount Nebo and Petra, during the Youth Initiative for Progress in Iraq Conference.

While most parents would think twice about sending their children to Amman, Jordan, to meet Iraqi youth, John Cassil's parents were, he said, "really excited about it, very supportive."

Then again, Cassil had been preparing for this summer's Youth Initiative for Progress in Iraq Conference for awhile.

"Living in Kuwait a few years ago opened my eyes to different cultures," said the 17-year-old Hollywood resident and son of a retired Air Force pilot.

He has represented China, the Netherlands and Israel in Trident Tech's Model United Nations program and served as a page in the U.S. House of Representatives in the fall of 2007.

But can anything really prepare you for 10 days in Jordan, discussing problems facing Iraq and Iraqi-American relations with 31 other American and Iraqi youth?

The YIPI Conference involved three phases: sharing and learning cultures, histories, and identities; identifying issues in Iraq and drafting a declaration of intent for "international consideration;" and planning humanitarian projects to help Iraqi youth.

Students ranged in age from 16 to 19. American youth hailed from places including Chicago, Kansas City and Chattanooga, Tenn., and Iraqi youth from areas such as southern Iraq, Baghdad, and the northern region known as Kurdistan.

"A lot of people don't realize that in Iraq, there isn't one general culture. It is a multi-faceteed country of several cultures, which depend upon religion as well as ethnicity and geography," Cassil said. "Even though the Iraqis may have such different cultures, in actuality, they are just normal people like us. We tried to focus on the ways that our cultures were similar."

By the end of the conference, they had produced a declaration of intent to share with world leaders on five main issues: improving education in Iraq, improving infrastructure in Iraq, reconciliation, rebuilding civil society, and security.

For Cassil, security was one of the most important points.

"Before there is more security in Iraq, the other sectors of humanitarian needs cannot be met. Everyone agreed that there needed to be a much bigger, stronger, and functional police force," he said. "No one wanted the U.S. troops to leave based on a timetable, but rather on specified minimum conditions."

Also important to Cassil were a more transparent Iraqi government, free and fair elections, and basic infrastructure for water, electricity, and transportation.

The declaration of intent calls for Iraqis to unite, for oil revenues to be used for humanitarian and social programs and for international reconciliation, from security for refugees to more dialogue among youth of the two countries.

The conference finished July 25. In his closing address, Michael Schoenleber, the 19-year-old founder and director of YIPI, said he hoped that Senators McCain and Obama would pay attention to the youths' thoughts and commitment.

They plan on sending their declaration to world leaders.

"A lot of what we learned sparked us to think about what we, as American students, could do to fix problems there," said Cassil.

During the third phase of the conference, he and two other Americans founded Youth for Educational Advancement in Iraq. Their main mission is to provide badly needed textbooks to Iraqi schools.

Reach Anna Harmon at 937-5002 or aharmon@postandcourier.com.