IRSA — the Iranian Student Association at the University of Central Florida — is a registered student organization, chartered by a handful of Iranian-American students who wanted a room where Farsi felt natural and the Persian calendar set the rhythm of the year. We're a cultural org first: chai hours, Nowruz, mentorship, mutual aid.
For most Iranian-American students at UCF, IRSA is the first time you can hear your mother's Farsi spoken across a room with seventy other voices answering. That moment — the one where you realize you're not alone — is what we are built around.
Everything else flows from there. The Nowruz dinners and Yalda nights. The Friday chai hour. The big-sibling mentorship for new students. The carpools to Tampa and Miami. The translators' circle that helps new arrivals through their first Florida summer. We do these because culture isn't an artifact — it's a behavior, and behaviors only survive if a generation chooses to live them.
Tap a card to see what we mean.
Nowruz, Yalda, Mehregan, Sizdah Bedar. Each one is a real event on campus — catered, programmed, open to anyone curious. Heritage is something you do, not something you remember.
Run by a small committee of members, IRSA Aid pools small gifts from the community and distributes them — quietly, accurately, with a receipt for everything — to Iranian students at UCF who need a hand. Book stipends. Rent gaps. A meal card when finals week and an empty pantry collide.
Every dollar that comes in goes back out to a student. No platform fees. Tax receipts on request.
When something happens inside Iran that our community is living through, we don't pretend not to notice. Iran Watch is a small editorial sub-site where IRSA members write short, sourced dispatches and host translated witness accounts. It runs alongside the cultural programming, not in place of it — and we're careful to keep advocacy and cultural events on separate tracks so neither is compromised.
Visit the Iran Watch desk →The form takes ninety seconds — and tells us how you'd like to help, from showing up at chai hour to running an event.
