Nora Elmarzouky

Workshop Facilitation
Curriculum Development
Civic Engagement Strategies

Nora is a civic and intercultural engagement and community development specialist. She currently manages the Pew Center funded Friends, Peace, and Sanctuary Project at Swarthmore College, which brings resettled Syrian and Iraqi collaborators in conversation with book artists around questions of displacement, refuge, history and experience and exploring art’s capacity to build empathy and create a deeper sense of belonging while also activating archives.

Nora brought in.site to her city of residence, Philadelphia where she consults, designs, and implements programs and projects related to uplifting alternative narratives, community development, civic engagement and cross-cultural understanding. Her recent portfolio includes researching and coordinating for City Panorama of Philadelphia Assembled Project, interactive workshops, creative placemaking evaluation for LoLa 38 Project, and collaborative program design, implementation, and evaluation for Tabadul Project at Al-Bustan. Additionally, she supports alternative Arab spaces through PhlNiqash, a monthly salon discussion around educational programming, workshops, culture, representation and history, as well as Anti-Islamophobia. Nora has worked with and supported initiatives such as YallaPunk festival, Our City, Our Schools campaign for equal access to quality education for all kids, serves as a Board Member of Barrio Alegria and East Parkside Residents Association, and is a Founders Fellow with Impact100.

Prior to this, she spent over seven years in Egypt where she worked on various research, advocacy, and educational projects related to human development, culture, identity, environment, and democracy. While in Egypt she designed the leading service-learning and community-based curriculum within international schools, which engaged students through building relationships and community development projects across socio-economic divides within communities in Egypt. Her Theories of Urban Practice MA from Parsons School of Design focused on the intersections of public education “reform” and urban “revitalization”. She received her BA in International Relations with a concentration in global conflict, cooperation and justice, and minored in Arabic. Nora has lived predominantly between Egypt and many cities in the US, and has also resided in Spain, Morocco, and the Czech Republic.

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