Senior Ian Roozrokh has his luggage packed even on school days because he has committed himself heavily in North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY), an organization that aims to reform Jewish teens and elevate their leadership skills.

Participating in NFTY since seventh grade, Roozrokh is now the Communications and Visuals Vice President for NFTY Missouri Valley Region. He said he bears a lot of responsibilities. He takes charge of all the social media, makes flyers, makes merchandise and T-shirts and photographs meetings.

“I’m responsible for keeping a network together,” Roozrokh said. “On top of all the responsibilities, I’ve learned how to deal with situations and how to cope with other people, and communication overall is very important in the real world. [NFTY has] taught me a lot.”

NFTY is divided into thirteen different regions. There are eight people on board in the Missouri Valley Region, working as a team to host events and to make sure everything runs smoothly. Roozrokh said he spends a lot of weekends on the road in order to help run NFTY’s eight annual events.

“It’s a lot of work…” Roozrokh said. “I added it up one day; I lose a total of 14 days of school overall.”

Roozrokh said missing school because of NFTY has become his new normal. Because the events usually start on Friday and go through Sunday, he leaves on the Thursday beforehand to assure that he is fully prepared for the upcoming days. He said the combination of missing school and preparing for NFTY events result in unavoidable stress. He manages to control the stress by realizing there are people constantly supporting him.

“There’s a huge support with the rest of the board, with the rest of the NFTY that I can lean to,” Roozrokh said. “If someone falls, or someone needs help, there’s always that support…I feel that the community is the one thing that makes me stay there, that makes me love NFTY for what it is…That’s why [NFTY] keeps coming back [to me] and I keep getting involved.”

Roozrokh said NFTY has opened his door to the entire world, and he thinks everyone should have the same opportunity to be a leader. He said raising awareness in teens has been crucial to his learning experience.

Through NFTY, Roozrokh said he has found a place where he is free from other people’s judgments. He said this has helped him be more confident at school. The Missouri Valley Region President and Roozrokh’s best friend, Ethan Stone, said he has seen Roozrokh become more outgoing through NFTY.

“[NFTY] definitely changed Ian in the same way it changed me,” Stone said. “I was not a leader. I was not outgoing, and Ian came off a lot more shy than I did. Our experiences in NFTY, for both of us, have brought us up to this level of  ‘we are superstars’…He’s more outgoing, less shy. He’s more willing to take risks. He’s more willing to communicate.”

Roozrokh’s mother, Rachel Roozrokh, said his leadership role has made him a more mature young man because he has experience with working with adults and dealing with different situations. She said it has also allowed him to be more articulate when he presents himself in front of a group or when he works with other people.

“For Ian, [NFTY has] given him a time to reflect and be his own person, and it allows him [to take on] more responsibility and grow up,” Rachel said. “ I think a huge piece [is that Ian is] more responsible…it’s something that he’s grown with over the years.”

Roozrokh said his experiences in NFTY have landed him an internship opportunity with Union of Reform Judaism (URJ), the supervisor of NFTY.

“I’ll be doing that [internship] at a national convention in Atlanta,” Roozrokh said. “I’ll be responsible for making a video for the whole event. As for after high school, there are opportunities for me to apply to national board, but that’s a lot of responsibility and a lot of time commitment.”

Roozrokh said being actively involved in youth groups and raising awareness of people’s actions are crucial values to NFTY and he thinks everyone should have the opportunity to discover his or her own potential as a unique individual.

“I think there are people here and everywhere else that are in this cage or this box that don’t like to show themselves, and I think for me, the door is opened [by NFTY],” Roozrokh said. “If I hadn’t been in NFTY, I wouldn’t have a lot of things to look at…so I’m really glad that I have the opportunity to be in NFTY, be involved.”