Noora Sharrab: The Palestinian Canadian Who Turned a Box of Soap into a Business Across Borders

Noora Sharrab wasn't looking for a new career when someone handed her a box of olive oil soap made by women in a Palestinian refugee camp. She was working in humanitarian development, helping expand educational opportunities for refugee women. Retail was unfamiliar territory. But the women had already made the soap, and they needed someone to help them sell it. That simple request would take Sharrab from humanitarian work into the demanding world of Canadian entrepreneurship.

Born in Dubai to Palestinian parents from Gaza, Sharrab moved to Canada at a young age and grew up in Toronto. Her Palestinian heritage remained an important part of her identity, even as she built her life in Canada. At York University, where she studied political science and later specialised in forced migration and refugee studies, she became increasingly interested in the differences between her own upbringing and the experiences of Palestinians living in refugee camps.

She decided to explore those differences firsthand.

Travelling to Jordan, Sharrab stayed with Palestinian families and learned about the barriers facing women who wanted to continue their education or earn a living. The experience helped shape her decision to co-found Hopes for Women in Education, an initiative supporting higher education for refugee women.

She later worked with the United Nations in Jordan, developing a career rooted in humanitarian work. Starting a consumer business was nowhere in her plans.

Then came the soap.

Women in Jerash refugee camp had received training in traditional olive oil soapmaking and produced boxes of finished products. But they had no established market. Safiah Abu Shanin, a community volunteer who would become one of Sitti's co-founders, approached Sharrab for help finding buyers.

Sharrab initially hesitated. She knew little about soap manufacturing or retail. Yet the situation exposed a problem she recognised from her work with refugee communities: acquiring a skill did not necessarily mean being able to earn an income from it.

The women did not need someone to make the soap for them. They needed a way to sell what they had already made.

Working with Jacqueline Sofia and Abu Shanin, Sharrab helped establish Sitti, a social enterprise whose name means my grandmother in Arabic. The business drew on the artisans' existing knowledge while the founders developed packaging, marketing and distribution channels to reach customers beyond Jordan.

From Canada, Sharrab began tackling challenges she had never encountered in humanitarian development. Building a brand meant convincing buyers to take a chance on an unfamiliar product, navigating retail requirements and finding the money to sustain production.

There were setbacks. In one particularly costly lesson, she purchased barcodes from a third-party supplier, only to discover they were unsuitable for the retail distribution the company needed. Packaging had to be reconsidered, and Sharrab had to learn the technical requirements of getting products onto Canadian store shelves.

The experience was far removed from the academic research that had first taken her to Jordan. Yet it demanded the same willingness to learn, ask questions and reconsider her assumptions.

Sitti gradually expanded from its original olive oil soap into skincare, household products and gifts. Its products reached retailers and distributors in North America and the Middle East, connecting a Canadian commercial operation with artisans working in Jordan.

For Sharrab, success required balancing two responsibilities. The company had to attract customers and remain financially viable, but its growth also needed to support the women whose work gave the enterprise its purpose.

By May 2022, Sitti supported more than 30 team members through two community-based partners in Jerash, according to Sharrab. That same year, the Oakville-based company received a C$10,000 grant and business coaching through Visa Canada's She's Next programme. The funding recognised a women-led business that had grown well beyond its original product.

The numbers tell part of the story. The rest lies in the opportunities created when women can earn money from skills they already possess, rather than rely solely on short-term assistance.

Sharrab's own transformation was equally significant. The young Palestinian Canadian who had travelled to Jordan to explore her heritage had returned to a different challenge: building a business in Canada that could connect her two worlds.

She had to acquire commercial skills, navigate financing and learn how to compete in markets where a compelling social mission alone could not guarantee sales. Her professional identity expanded from researcher and humanitarian worker to entrepreneur.

She did not build Sitti alone. Sofia, Abu Shanin and the artisans in Jerash were essential to its development, contributing the expertise, commitment and craftsmanship on which the business depended. Sharrab's role was to help translate those strengths into commercial opportunities, drawing on her Canadian experience while learning an entirely new profession herself.

What began as an attempt to better understand her Palestinian roots became a career she had never anticipated.

The box of soap did not arrive with a business plan or a promise of success. It presented a practical problem: talented women had made something valuable but lacked access to buyers.

Sharrab chose to help build that missing connection. In doing so, she created a new path for herself in Canada while helping bring the work of Palestinian refugee women to customers far beyond their camp.