Avila Kilmurray, Director, Community Foundation for Northern Ireland
Channel: Community Voices
Date: 2012-07-19

Avila Kilmurray, PhD directs the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland (previously the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust), a position she has held since 1994. The Foundation is an independent charitable grant-making organization whose mission is "to drive social change." She has been working in Northern Ireland since 1975, through community work in Derry, a Community Education Project in Magee, a range of anti-poverty initiatives, and through establishing the Women's Aid organization. Previously she worked with the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action and as coordinator of the Rural Action Project (N.I.). In 1990, she was appointed the first Women's Officer for the Transport & General Workers' Union (Ireland), and has also served on the Northern Ireland Committee and on the Executive Councils of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Dr. Kilmurray has been engaged in peacebuilding work for decades, serving communities of Northern Ireland through a long, continuing process of learning, listening, and capacity building. Her Community Voices talk was a culminating activity of three days engaging with Virginia Tech faculty, students, and staff.