Nardeen Matta is a young Egyptian woman who is managing the social empowerment and protection programs at Life Vision for Development, an NGO. She holds bachelor’s degrees in biomedical engineering and psychotherapy.  

Nardeen has volunteered and worked with vulnerable and homeless children since 2011. In 2015, she shifted her career from biomedical engineering to working with vulnerable and marginalized communities. Her primary focus has been on trauma psychotherapy for survivors of sexual abuse and adverse childhood experiences.  

Working in orphanages opened Nardeen’s eyes to how sending kids to orphanages had become a common cultural practice in Egypt in situations of family poverty. In 2018, she joined Life Vision and worked at a community center in Manshyet Nasser, an urban slum on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt with a population of 345,000 people who make a living by collecting garbage.  

In 2019, Nardeen became a program manager for the Oases Community Center. This program aims at the socio-economic empowerment of vulnerable children, adolescents, women, and their families living in the Cairo area. Its projects address social and financial education, life skills development, violence prevention and empowering community leaders through strengthening institutions.  

In 2022, Nardeen started a project at another community center, called The Rock. In the past two years, this project’s interventions have prevented the separation of or re-integrated 60 children with their biological families.