Shubbak Team
Alia Alzougbi (she/her)
Artistic Director & CEO
Alia is a cultural strategist, artist and facilitator working at the intersection of art and social and environmental justice. Her practice uses the arts to interrogate the fundamental causes of inequality and explore alternative modes of understanding the world and being in it, foregrounding dignity for all beings and Earth, our only home.
She has worked with national and international organisations as an artist and storyteller to create critical encounters in education and the arts towards collective liberation, from local corner shops to world-renowned museums.
Alia is a Chevening Scholar, a Clore Fellow and Associate, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Prior to joining Shubbak, she was Director of the global citizenship education organisation Global Learning London.
Dr Dima Mekdad (she/her)
Executive Director
Dima returned to Shubbak after being the Executive Director of Candoco Dance Company. She has a PhD in Analytical Science from King’s College London. She used to be a project manager and a researcher at the UK National Measurement Laboratory for ten years. Dima is the co-founder and former director of Qisetna: Talking Syria. She is the co-founder and co-director of Zamakan CIC, the umbrella of SACF, London’s Syrian Arts & Culture Festival. Dima wears several hats, among them a storyteller, a politicised-somatics practitioner and a new writer. Dima is also the Co-Chair of Refugee Week.
Huda Daghem (she/her)
Head of Finance & Operations
Huda is a finance professional with a background in asset management and strategic planning. Previous to her role at Goldman Sachs, she studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford, where she also served as President of the Oxford Arab Society. Here she led cultural, educational, and charitable initiatives that celebrated Arab heritage, arts and identity, and fostered dialogue across communities.
She has worked with activists and scholars internationally to organise campaigns, events and protests as part of the movement for Palestinian liberation. She is also a writer whose work seeks to explore identity, memory, and belonging as a member of the diaspora.
Alia Wasfi
Participation Producer
Alia is a creative producer working at the intersection of community practice, experimental production, and collective care. Her work is rooted in culturally inherited values.
At Shubbak, she develops community rooted programmes that centre access, belonging, and self-representation, including Shubbak Corner on Edgware Road, a three-week cultural hub combining a bookshop residency, micro-gallery, workshops, and community programming in a site of deep significance for Arab Londoners.
Alongside this, Alia is 1/3 of Maqam, a nomadic bookshop and online marketplace. Across her practice, she creates spaces where culture is lived, shared, and shaped together, not simply presented.
Daniel Kok
Senior Producer
Dan is a producer and programmer working in contemporary performance. Previously he worked at Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture as International Partnerships Programme lead and at Another Route which was an Arts Council England, British Council and Jerwood Arts funded programme to support England based artists to internationalise their practice.
He was International Producer at the Royal Court Theatre in London where he led and delivered on the international programme which included working with artists from the UK and other countries such as Japan, Chile and China. Dan was also Arts Producer at Cambridge Junction, programming the arts programme which included theatre, dance, live art, circus, spoken word and family work. Other places of work include The Barbican, artsdepot and Battersea Arts Centre.
He is also on the Board of UK Theatre Company Forced Entertainment and Marlborough Productions, a leading UK producer of queer-led, intersectional performance, parties, heritage and radical community gatherings
Our Wider Team
Our festivals are supported by a team of volunteers, freelance producers and partner organisations.
IT support & advice by Robert Filkins, IT4Arts.
Our Bookkeeper is Jo Hughes, Blackdot.
Website by Bullet Creative.
Shubbak Trustees
Zeina Najjar
Zeina is a Solicitor in the Charity and Social Enterprise department at Bates Wells, where she advises charities and non-profits on a wide range of matters. She was previously Head of Communications at the Thomson Reuters Foundation and served as Coordinator for the Institute for Regional and International Studies at the American University of Iraq in Sulaimani (AUIS). Zeina holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the American University of Beirut, an MSc in Media and Communications from the London School of Economics and an LLM from The University of Law.
Riwa Saab
Riwa is a Young Shubbak and Barbican Young Poets alumnus and interdisciplinary artist, specialising in theatre directing, poetry and singer songwriting. She recently completed a BA in Performance and Creative Enterprise at Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Elizabeth Briggs
Elizabeth Briggs is Editorial Director at Saqi Books. Her work in the publishing industry over the past decade spans agenting and the non-for-profit literary sector alongside eight cherished years at Saqi. She has collaborated with some of the industry’s most prominent voices and spoken at festivals including Hay-on-Wye, LBF and Essex Book Festival. She has recently participated in roundtables at the House of Lords and LSE regarding culture and artists in Palestine. Elizabeth’s first book Dissenters (longlisted for The London Library Emerging writers programme 2024) is forthcoming from Unbound. You can find her on Twitter @litfactivist.
Sandra Sfeir
Sandra is Institutional Fundraising Manager at the Zoological Society of London. She is an experienced fundraiser, project and event manager with a background primarily in the higher education and international media development sectors. She is also a long-term volunteer with young people who have experience of forced migration.
Aimee Shalan
Aimee Shalan is Director of Makan, a Palestinian-led organisation providing transformative education to strengthen the movement for Palestinian liberation. She is also a policy member of the Palestinian policy network, Al Shabaka; a trustee of Friends of Birzeit University; and Chair of the British-Palestinian Committee. Her previous roles included Chief Executive of Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), Director of Friends of Birzeit University (Fobzu), and Co-founder and Director of Pressure Cooker Arts, a not-for-profit arts and advocacy organisation. She has written for and given broadcast interviews with a wide variety of media outlets and she holds a doctorate in the Politics of Palestinian Literature.
Mohammed Khalil
Mohammed Khalil is a senior investment strategist at Standard Life. He is responsible for asset allocation, portfolio construction, and sustainable investment strategy. Previously, he was a multi-asset portfolio manager at BlackRock, where he was responsible for developing and managing investment solutions for pensions, foundations, endowments, and family offices. Mohammed is passionate about the preservation of Palestinian culture, especially through food and music.