Nariman Moustafa

Nariman Moustafa is an activist and community organizer in the broader field of alternative learning. She is by “academic” training a dentist, who went (and still goes) through a journey of un-learning and healing from the education system. Over the past eight years, she has been working as a consultant, mentor, and facilitator (using action and theater based methods) for youth, refugees, and education projects founders. Being a self-directed, social learner, Nariman has done substantial search, through work and travel, with several alternative educational initiatives in India, Palestine, Denmark, Mexico and the US. She believes in the notion of learning shared by the Zapatistas communities in Mexico, that is “asking, we walk”. Hence, she asks questions, travels and connects to find possible answers and more questions. In these journeys, she likes to connect to as many fellows as possible to be able to inquire together, the latter being her intention for holding this space within the Pedagogy Lab at CILAS Alex.

Nariman founded “Mesahat: an Egyptian Network for Self-Organized Learning spaces” (a network of interconnected, inter-dependent alternative education spaces that apply the culture, values, and tools of Self-Directed Education). Within that framework, she is also the director of “Mesahat: Liberating Learning Spaces”, a self-directed, democratic un/school and learning community based in Cairo that works with children aged 6 to 17 years old. Nariman is a co-founder of “Mubadeeron fi Al-Taalem”, a 12-week school journey for people interested to bring about social change in the field of education, under the umbrella of “Education Square” organization. She is, additionally, a member of the global Ecoversities network, a planetary movement, initiated from the Global South for alternative, place-based, ecological, higher education models.