ISOW’s story began in the winter months of 2013 in a small first-year seminar at Wilfrid Laurier University, where students were finishing up their final projects that were designed to engage students on of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One of these proposals included having Laurier partner with the Daughters for Life Foundation, an organization that works to give young women affected by conflict in the Middle East a university education abroad.
Within a few months, several students who had been part of the original seminar came together with others to develop the project into a student club that could facilitate the proposed partnership.
Through countless meetings, student campaigning, and recruitment of additional members, the student club was able to realize its vision through two key developments in early 2015: an agreement with Daughters for Life to sponsor two young women starting in September 2015; and undergraduate and graduate student levies which were established to provide the financial support for these incoming Scholars as well as to support more students in the future. In September 2015, ISOW welcomed its first two undergraduate scholars in partnership with Daughters for Life through Wilfrid Laurier University.
Following the success of the agreement with the Daughters for Life Foundation in January 2015, ISOW management team members pursued a partnership agreement with Jusoor Syria, a Non Governmental Organization that works to provide education to Syrian youth. In April of 2016, a partnership between Wilfrid Laurier University and Jusoor was established to sponsor four additional Syrian students to come to Laurier on full scholarships, all of whom began their studies in September of 2016.
Following U.S. President Donald Trump's travel ban of Syrians (among others) to the United States, Jusoor approached ISOW with six additional students they hoped to place at a university outside the U.S. These students arrived in the Fall of 2017. In April, 2017, the first ISOW Scholar to graduate with a Master of Arts in Cultural Analysis and Social Theory (CAST).
In 2018, ISOW and Jusoor supported three additional students who
arrived in the fall. ISOW continues to seek partnerships with new
organizations and to sponsor students from other parts of the world affected by violent conflict.
In Fall 2019, ISOW will welcome three additional students; one from Jusoor, one from Daughter’s For Life and one from ISOW’s one-time partnership with the Iraqi Syrian Student Project (ISSP). The partnership with ISSP means that ISOW will have its first male scholar.
ISOW hosted the Educators in Emergencies conference at Laurier in March 2020. When COVID-19 broke out in Canada ISOW student leaders and scholars adapted together to continue their studies and keep ISOW running. ISOW started a partnership with Prospect Burma and is working toward welcoming a scholar from Myanmar in January 2021.
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