Luma Mufleh

Luma Mufleh is a Syrian/Jordanian entrepreneur, coach, and thought leader in refugee and English Language Learner education. The daughter and granddaughter of Syrian refugees, Luma grew up in Amman, Jordan, where she was one of the only Arab students in her class at an American school, and one of the only girls who played on her soccer team. As a young adult in a country where being gay was considered a crime, Luma came out to her parents and was disowned. In 1993, she came to the United States to attend Smith College and graduated with a B.A. in Anthropology in 1997. Granted asylum in the US, Luma navigated the broken immigration system to build a life for herself — opening a coffee shop and coaching soccer. In 2006, she founded Fugees Family, the only network of schools in the U.S. dedicated to refugee and immigrant education. Luma is empowering refugee children to use their voices to reclaim and tell their own stories – shifting the narrative around refugees away from the current fear-mongering frame to one of courage, resilience, and creative potential. Luma completed the Executive Program in Social Entrepreneurship at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In 2019, Luma was named an Emerson Collective Dial Fellow and a Manhattan Institute Civil Society Fellow.