Gerard Diver is a History & Politics and Community Economic Development graduate of the University of Ulster, with almost two decades of experience in the Community & Voluntary sector in the North-West. Gerard has considerable experience of work in the areas of community development, community relations, participative youth work and more recently in employability and training projects. He has been an SDLP member of Derry City Council since 2001 and was the city’s Mayor from 2008-2009. Among the issues that he focused on during his mayoral year were, the initial stages of the Regeneration Plan for the city as developed by Derry City Council and Ilex, the establishment of a Homelessness Forum to which he allocated 12% of the Mayor’s annual budget, and the securing of funding for the City of Hope Collective which took forty-three young performing arts students from every post primary school in the City to the United States to perform for US leaders.