My interest in alternative pedagogy and creative expression started in New York City as a documentary filmmaker and youth media educator for social justice.
Between1997 and 2007, I worked in several Arts in Education programs and organizations across NYC, teaching video production to youth, including Rheedlen’s Rise and Shine Productions, Dream Yard, and Global Action Project, as well as Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture in Philadelphia.
My experience and pedagogical approach were greatly influenced by popular education. It starts with the lived experience of those participating in the learning, and aims to empower people who feel marginalized socially and politically, to imagine the possibilities and to affect social change.
During this period, I was part of grass root communities that were raising awareness around Palestine. In this effort and with a group of filmmakers, I directed my first documentary, Until When…, an intimate portrait of 4 families in Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem.
In 2007, I moved to Beirut. I worked as a media educator to youth in the Palestinian camps and taught documentary courses at the Lebanese American University. I worked with the Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts (Al-Jana) on a participatory oral history project about the community and organizing spirit of the women of Ein El Hilweh Refugee Camp in South Lebanon. This culminated in the documentary, The Kingdom of Women: Ein El Hilweh in 2010.
In 2013, I worked with Biddayat for Audio-Visual Arts, where I helped develop and mentor in a documentary training program for Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese emerging filmmakers.
In 2018, in the wake of the stunted aspirations of the Arab revolutions, and the looming garbage and environmental crises in Lebanon, I began a series of conversations with families in my community who were looking for a more free, joyful, and nurturing educational space for their young children. We were attracted to the forest school educational model.
Between 2018 and 2019, I apprenticed in several forest schools in the UK and Spain, took a forest school leader training in the UK, and began training at the Academy of Forest Kindergarten Teachers in the US.
In October 2019, I was part of a community that launched the Horshna Forest Program in Beirut.
Growing up with the sea is where I first felt oneness with the universe. Straddling multiple lands and identities, storytelling has rooted and sustained me. The journey from audio visual storyteller to oral storytelling with the children in the forest, allows me to continue to dream of creating new possibilities for living together. It heartens me to be part of a learning community that is connecting to our land in a meaningful and sustainable way.