Working at the State Department, I don’t get too much good news about U.S.-Iran relations. Iran’s nuclear program and its abysmal human rights record have driven a wedge between the two governments. So it was a refreshing surprise to go home and find a very upbeat article in this month’s AARP Bulletin about friendly cooperation between ordinary Iranians and Americans.

The article – “Iranian Cure for the Delta’s Blues” – focuses on the efforts of Dr. Aaron Shirley, a 77-year-old pediatrician who has worked for decades trying to bring decent health care to the impoverished and underserved people of the Mississippi Delta. Shirley was discouraged about the ongoing misery of the people he is trying to help until he met Iranian-born Dr. Mohammad Shahbazi, chair of the Department of Behavioral and Environmental Health at Jackson State University.

Shahbazi was able to organize a trip to Iran – with the tacit approval of the National Institutes of Health and Iran’s ministry of health – for Shirley and other American health care professionals so that they could learn about that country’s ingenious methods for providing health care to poor, rural communities.

The 2009 trip provided the Americans with a look at Iran’s system of using trained locals working out of “health houses.” This method, which has won kudos from the World Health Organization, has eliminated health disparities between rural and urban populations over the last 30 years and reduced infant mortality in rural areas by tenfold. The American doctors are now trying to replicate an adapted version of the Iranian system by establishing Mississippi “health houses” and training single mothers currently on welfare to staff them.

The story made me wonder if there could be more grassroots efforts for U.S.-Iran friendship. Do you have any to share?