My name is Mil Dranoff and I’m the newest summer intern at EPIC! I’m a rising senior at Washington University in St. Louis, and I am very interested in the intricacies of geo-political and religious conflict. I am excited to use EPIC both as a platform to learn more about the situation in Iraq, and to use this new knowledge to affect change in Washington.

I’ve just returned from a semester abroad in Jerusalem, where I was able to learn the ins and outs of a different conflict in the Middle East. Through J Street, a pro-Israel, pro-peace organization that advocates for bold American leadership towards a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I helped lead day trips through Israel and the West Bank. These trips were part of an educational initiative for (primarily American) college students studying abroad. Among the lessons that I learned as part of this leadership experience was the importance of the media’s coverage on issues taking place overseas and how the American public understands the image that is portrayed. The representation of what is taking place thousands of miles away is difficult, if not impossible, to cover accurately and completely in a short newspaper article buried in the middle of The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times. The general population is familiar with buzzwords and fear-instilling catchphrases, however that is often where education about current events stops.

That’s where organizations, such as EPIC come in. In addition to EPIC’s mission to promote peace and empower young people in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, EPIC also aims to educate the American people and government, through advocacy, for US and international diplomacy for securing peace and building democratic institutions. From my previous work in international advocacy, I’ve learned that both Congressmen and women and the general population have a plethora of issues to concern themselves with, and it is vital to speak with them about the effects of American policies on people halfway around the world. It is also just as important to bring important issues to the agenda, because as we have seen, Iraq has slowly made its way off the administration’s list. We only have to look at Obama’s recent visit to the Middle East to see that the situation in Iraq is not on his list of priorities. EPIC strives to put Iraq back on the agenda, and I am very eager to help be a part of that team.