Minutes into the first scene of the championship rounds, before any of the competitions had started and before any winners or losers could be identified, one of the youth qualifiers started to cry.

Rania (name changed for her privacy) was then a 16-year-old Kurdish girl from Mosul who had relocated to Erbil not too long before she joined the cast of youth competitors in the USIP-supported, Iraqi-produced TV series “Salam Shabab,” or “Peace Youth,” aimed at empowering Iraqi youth to be active peacebuilders in their communities. In Mosul, she and her family had been closely affected by the violence that engulfed Iraq in 2006 and 2007. They moved to Erbil, in the Kurdistan region, to escape insecurity and persecution in central Iraq. Rania had naturally felt out of place in her new home, isolated culturally and linguistically. Her feelings of separation were layered over the long-standing tension between Kurds and Arabs present in her family and community throughout her life.

Rania, being bright and creative, qualified for the final rounds of Season 1 of Salam Shabab, a peacebuilding competition television show for Iraqi teens meant to promote values such as respect for diversity and self-expression. She had done so by competing on a team with other Kurds, outscoring two other teams from Erbil. Up until now, she was under the impression that she would still be on that same team, representing her home province Erbil and the Kurds who lived there. This is why the surprise jumbling of the teams for the championship rounds was such a shock to her. She was blindsided and furious, and acted like she had already lost. She was Kurdish and had been placed on a team with Arabs.

When they lost a challenge, she blamed them, verbalizing the tension between Kurds and Arabs that she had inherited. She couldn’t have been more bitter about her situation. But she didn’t back out. And by the end, something had changed. After five rocky days of collaboration between her team members and herself (that did NOT result in an overall victory), she remarked at how closely she could relate to the Arab youth from provinces remote from her own. “When I joined Salam Shabab,” she explained, “I didn’t know that there were other Iraqi youth who were thinking about their circumstances. I was very happy to know them, work with them, and know that we share the same ideas and goals." 

Now, as the filming of Season 3 winds down, Rania is still attached to the project. She is a regular fixture on set interacting with this year’s youth as they navigate this year’s challenges. She interviews new contestants and offers her insight as a past competitor. She will compose a blog series on salamshabab.com about various campaigns she helps organize around social issues in her community. And when the third Season airs in early 2013, there will not only be new faces on the screen. Rania, along with other participants from past seasons, will remain active contributors to the program on TV and off. Her statement to the camera at the end of Season 1 seems to be holding true: “I lost today, but I will benefit for the rest of my life.”

Alexis Toriello is a senior program assistant for USIP's Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding Center of Innovation.