Stage 4 – Advancing literacy & oracy skills

An economist by training, Dina spent her early career working for NGOs and think tanks that conduct research on issues of poverty reduction, inequality and sustainability. Fuelled by her growing interest in children’s education, she completed a masters degree in Children’s Rights. Following a long struggle to find the right setup for her twin daughters to learn Arabic, she found Kalamna. A few conversations and training sessions later, she’d paved the way to make a complete shift into teaching Arabic.

Dina holds a BA in Business Administration and an MA in Economics from the American University in Cairo and a Masters in Children’s Rights from the University of Geneva. She is trilingual and uses both English and German in her Arabic classes.

Mariam wears multiple hats at Kalamna. When she’s not teaching our youngest students in Cambridge on Sundays, she’s making sure we run a smooth operation across all our Kalamna classes. Before moving to the UK, Mariam worked at a nursery in Alexandria, Egypt. She is an avid photographer and traveller.

Dalia joined Kalamna in 2021 opening our second franchise in Manchester. Before moving to the UK, Dalia founded one of the first sensory play classes for babies in the Arab region. A certified Positive Educator, she is a mother of two and a passionate student of all things child-psychology who has a natural talent for meeting children where they are at and enabling them to develop and thrive at their own pace.

Rehab joined Kalamna in 2020 and opened the first ever Kalamna franchise branch in Newcastle, UK.

When she’s not teaching Arabic to her students in-person and online, she’s working on English-Arabic translations or editing Arabic books. She’s the author of the best-selling book Rice Pudding for Two (Dar ElShorouk, 2008). Through her translation career, she translated over 25 books into Arabic. Rehab holds an MA in Creative Writing from Newcastle University.