Nour Emam

Nour Emam (Arabic: نور إمام) is an Egyptian technology entrepreneur, doula and reproductive health activist. She is co-founder and CEO of the Cairo-based femtech startup company Daleela by Motherbeing. Quotes I almost didn’t know my body at all. Reflecting on her experience of trying to conceive, Nour Emam explains that she realised how little she understood about her own reproductive health. This discovery motivated her to study sexual and reproductive health and later establish MotherBeing. I wished that someone had taught me this when I was younger. After learning about fertility awareness and the menstrual cycle, Emam reflects that comprehensive reproductive health education would have helped her much earlier in life. I strongly believe that social media is a wonderful tool to connect with an audience and to create trust. In an interview discussing MotherBeing, Emam explains why she views social media as an effective platform for providing accessible, evidence-based sexual and reproductive health education to Arabic-speaking women. We have to just keep going. Arabic does not stop at the belly button. Explaining why MotherBeing deliberately uses correct Arabic anatomical terminology, Emam argues that avoiding proper words for reproductive organs reinforces shame and disconnects people from understanding their own bodies. No-one teaches you about marital sex … because there's a fear that if we talk to you about sex, we're automatically encouraging you to have premarital sex, which is not the case. Speaking to SBS Dateline, Emam explains that the absence of sex education in Egypt stems from the mistaken belief that discussing sex promotes premarital sexual activity, leaving many married women without basic knowledge of their own bodies. There is a lot of control over women's bodies, there is a lack of bodily autonomy, there is a lack of just basic knowledge of what consent means. Speaking on the "Doing It!" podcast, Nour Emam discusses the barriers to sexual and reproductive health education in many Arab societies, arguing that silence around these subjects contributes to misinformation and limits women's bodily autonomy. We understood that by using less controversial words, we could reach far more people. Explaining how MotherBeing adapted its educational approach, Nour Emam says the organisation deliberately chose culturally familiar language when discussing sexual and reproductive health so that more women would engage with the information rather than reject it. Category:African women Category:Activists Category:Women Category:Egypt External links Category:Women activists from Egypt Category:Health activists Category:Entrepreneurs Category:Living people