Our Guest Speakers
Safia Trabelsi
Founding Manager of Nile River Montessori
Safia Trabelsi is the Founding Manager of Nile River Montessori and has always had a strong belief that high quality education is the hope for our future societies and the world. She took her first AMI Montessori training for children 3-6 years old before she launches the first AMI Montessori school in Egypt in 2018; She also has the 0-3 AMI Montessori Certificate. Currently Safia is pursuing her 6-12 AMI Montessori Diploma.
Prior to that Trabelsi has a long career working in international development and right to people in different organisations such as the UN Women, League of Arab States and International Planned Parenthood Federation where she worked on refugees and internally displaced people. Safia is a recipient of The Fulbright grant for foreign students and obtained her Master’s in Coexistence and Conflicts from Brandeis University, Boston, and Massachusetts and worked for the Harvard’s Ash Centre for Democratic Governance and Innovation.
Today, she focusing her career to support early childhood in Egypt at local and national level. She already supported few preschools in remote villages in upper Egypt to provide Centre child education based on understanding the nature of the children, inspired from Montessori approach.
Salam Aref
co-founder and Head of School of Aya Montessori
Salam is an architect-turned-Montessori educator and school leader who seeks to bridge beauty, spirituality, and community through education. She is the co-founder and Head of School of Aya Montessori, the first AMI-recognized school in the United States to integrate Islamic spiritual education and Arabic Language into its Montessori model. Aya Montessori serves 190 families between ages 2-12. Salam earned her AMI Primary Diploma at the Washington Montessori Institute (WMI) and later completed her AMI Adolescent Diploma with Train Montessori. She also holds an M.Ed. in Montessori Education and a B.S. in Architecture with a minor in Islamic Art History. A Syrian American of Circassian heritage, Salam lives in the Washington, D.C. area with her husband and two boys, ages 11 and 8, whose birth sparked her Montessori journey and the founding of Aya Montessori. She is currently working on opening the first AMI Islamic Adolescence Farm School in the world in September 2026.