
AMARILIS PULLEN
PROGRAM OFFICER
Mamá sighs when I tell her that we have to come back tomorrow.
“Ay, m’ijita,” she says. “You’re going to fight everyone’s fight, aren’t you?”
“It’s all the same fight, Mamá”
~Minerva Mirabal,
In the Time of the Butterflies
Prior to joining the Foundation, Amarilis worked at the Educational Alliance, a settlement house in the Lower East Side of New York City. During her ten-year tenure there, she navigated various roles in the Youth Development department, starting in direct practice work and over time transitioning to the Director of Adolescent Services where she managed a vibrant youth development department serving over 1,700 pre-teens, teens and young adults annually.
As a youth development practitioner, Amarilis designed, implemented and managed initiatives that bridged leadership development, college access, visual arts, social emotional wellness, undergirded by an anti-oppressive lens and analysis. Amarilis’s commitment to developing her team led to the creation of workshops, retreats and conferences dedicated to strengthening their analysis of race, culture and structural oppression in youth work.
Amarilis earned a Bachelors of Arts in English from Temple University and a Masters in Social Work from Columbia University. In her spare time, she is training her beloved Maltese, Lola, as a dog Olympian and wandering the magical corners of the earth.