Diali Avila
Public Allies Arizona 2010-2011 / 2011-2012
Born in Mexico, Diali and her family migrated to the United States when she was 11 years old. Growing up, she was always aware of the importance of education and community organizing. When she graduated from high school, she got involved at a local radio station to work with college students and together understand the power of their voice and actions. Doing community radio made her aware of the anti-immigrant rhetoric communities in Arizona were facing. For several years, Diali organized community forums, fundraisers, and other outreach opportunities to create spaces for organizing conversations.
In 2014, Diali started organizing for the Affordable Care Act with Planned Parenthood to support Latinx communities to enroll in health care. While there, she continued organizing around reproductive health care and her biggest accomplishment was her work to win inclusive policies at the high school district level and get comprehensive sexuality education. While at PPFA she helped run a federal advocacy campaign to save funding for Planned Parenthood and the Affordable Care Act. Avila went on to join the Defend Our Dreams campaign as a Field Director to support and pass the Dream Act in Congress. She has also had the opportunity to join efforts to support child care advocates in various states to advocate for better access and a living wage for workers.
In 2020, Avila worked with the Census Counts campaign at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights by leading the field Get Out The Count strategies to ensure historically undercounted communities participated in the 2020 Census as well as collaborating with state partners all across the country to defend and improve voter rights. Her work continued as a member of the We Are Home campaign to implement field and organizing strategies as the campaign’s Field Director.
Throughout her work, she has focused on working and strategizing with local organizations around the country in states like New York, Mississippi, Illinois and Nevada. Currently Diali lives in Arizona and she loves spending time cooking new recipes, listening to podcasts and karaoke!
Tell us about your leadership?
Since I served with Public Allies in Arizona, I started my organizing and advocacy career. I started organizing with community members around health care, immigrant rights, voting rights and other issues that our communities care about. I learned how to train others and encourage their growth and commitment to leadership. I've had the opportunity to lead in various spaces across the country, including several national campaigns and coalition building.
Moving to D.C. really put me in a position to expand my potential and the space I had to grow as an advocate and leader. All the work that I do, I always focus on coaching, community-building and training. Leading with my values is very important to me and I believe part of it was that I learned it during my time with Public Allies.
Which Public Allies core value resonates with you the most and why?
The value that is closest to me is diversity and inclusion. I see this value as the ultimate value to have in life because when you are accepting and understanding of others, making sure to include everyone, it's easier and more organically to include the rest of the Public Allies values. For me personally, there is no way to lead with integrity, collaboration, be innovative, focus on assets and learn continuously if a diversity and inclusive lens is missing. This way, with all the work I do, I strive to always be aware of which groups, individuals and representation is missing from conversations.