As an emergency room physician in Iraq, Dr. Al-Nasir Bellah Al-Nasiry frequently faces challenging circumstances. In the middle of a crisis, his patients appreciate his grace under pressure without realizing that his courage was forged as a patient, not in medical school. At 17, he was shot in the leg by a sniper. He could have caved under peer pressure and considered revenge, but instead, as he recently told a journalist, he remembered Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous words, “Violence begets violence.” After being treated without anesthesia in an understaffed emergency room, he decided to pursue a career in medicine to fill an urgent need in Iraq.
Dr. Al-Nasiry is a proud 2010 Iraqi Youth Leaders Exchange Program (IYLEP) alumnus and he is committed to working with fellow Iraqi alumni to improve the state of medical care in Baghdad, particularly for children with grave illnesses. When he is not pulling double shifts as a resident at the Sulaimaniyah Teaching Hospital, Dr. Al-Nasiry is an active member of the Iraqi exchange alumni community. He credits his exchange with launching his impressive volunteer work, saying “I view my IYLEP experience as the starting point of my volunteer work in support of civil society and the start of my work in youth leadership. The new friends that I met during IYLEP provided me inspiration and a strong network that I knew I could rely upon even far away in Iraq.”
He started a project called “There’s Always Hope” with Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and IYLEP alumni. Project volunteers visit local medical facilities and provide support to Iraqi children with cancer. For the past three years, Dr. Al-Nasiry has worked with alumni to organize the annual Baghdad City of Peace Carnival in conjunction with the UN’s World Peace Day. The Carnival, which features a wide array of entertainers, poets, and actors, attracts thousands of annual attendees who come together to promote alternatives to violence, extremism, and sectarianism.
His work with the alumni network is only the beginning of his career in civil society. He is also a member of the Iraqi Youth Parliament and the head of the TEDxBaghdad blogging team. Dr. Al-Nasiry’s professional accomplishments are impressive, but his personal story of resilience and forgiveness serve as a reminder of the truth in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s statement on courage: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
Each month, the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ (ECA) Alumni Affairs Division, which supports program alumni as they build on their exchange experiences, recognizes one outstanding alumnus or alumna. Dr. Al-Nasir Bellah Al-Nasiry is this month’s outstanding alumnus, and his work will be recognized throughout April on the International Exchange Alumni website, ECA’s official alumni website which serves more than one million Department-sponsored exchange alumni worldwide.