Laila Hourani, Middle East & North Africa Lead

Laila Hourani is a cultural leader and novelist with twenty-five years’ experience in art, culture and media development, intercultural relations and partnership building for social development.

Laila recently moved to Norway to join Mimeta as Director of their international cultural rights and cultural development program. The strategies she has developed while at the British Council in Syria, followed by the Ford Foundation in Egypt, have contributed to sustaining and strengthening the independent cultural sector in the MENA region and supporting storytellers in MENA and in Africa.

Born in Damascus to a Palestinian refugee family, educated in Lebanon, Cyprus and Russia, forced out of Syria into Egypt at the height of the Arab Spring, Laila has experienced first-hand the atrocities of war, as well as the aspirations of revolution.

She has also experienced the power of creative storytelling to transform individuals and communities. While art cannot change the world, the world cannot change without art; this is Laila’s passionate belief.