Baroness May Blood

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BaronessBaroness May Blood MBE was born in Belfast and has lived for the last thirty years in the Springmartin area of West Belfast.

For 39 years she worked in a local mill as a cutter, during which time she was an active trade unionist. 

As a member of the Amalgamated Transport & General Workers’ Union, she worked as senior union stewart becoming a director on the Labour Relations Agency, and a panel member of the Industrial Tribunal Panels.  She now uses her position in the House of Lords to speak up for working-class people.

 

In 1995 Baroness Blood was given the Global Citizens Circle Award.  In 1996, she was awarded an MBE for her work in labour relations.  She holds honorary doctorates for the University of Ulster, Open University, and the Queens’ University Belfast.

 

Baroness May Blood is chairperson of Impact Training, an organisation that guides the education of young people at risk, and chair of the Campaign Executive of the Integrated Education Fund.

 

From 1990-2000 she has been a full-time community worker, working from 1993 –1997 for the Greater Shankill Partnership, a community-led regeneration initiative, working to support the social and economic integration of parents with young children, particularly women.

 

She is currently the Chair of Shankill Sure Start/The Early Years Project and sits on the Management Board of Barnardos.  She is also a Board Member of N & West Belfast HSS Trust.

 

In 1999 she became the first woman in Northern Ireland to be given life peerage.

 

Throughout her entire working life she has been a passionate advocate for those living with the effects of poverty, particularly in relation to housing, unemployment and early years education.  Since 1999 she has been an active campaigner for integrated education, and is Chair of the Integrated Education Fund.

 

Baroness Blood is a founder member of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition; she was a member of the Coalition’s Talks Team during the multi-party talks, which culminated with the Good Friday Agreement.