Remembering Jackie Kirk, McGill professor slain in Afghanistan

Funeral to held in the UK on Sept. 5; Montreal memorial at McGill on Sept. 16

A funeral for Dr. Jackie Kirk – a McGill professor and international aid worker who was slain by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan on Aug. 13 – will take place Friday, Sept. 5, in St. Andrew’s Church, Norton, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, UK, at approximately 1 p.m. local time. Family, friends and colleagues are all welcome to attend, but members of the press are respectfully requested to remain outside the church.

A separate memorial ceremony will be held in Montreal, Quebec, at McGill University’s Redpath Hall on Tuesday, Sept. 16, at 3 p.m. local time. The public is welcome to attend this ceremony, but space will be limited.

The heartbreaking story is well known. On Aug. 13, gunmen opened fire on a pair of SUVs driving in Afghanistan’s Logar province, southeast of Kabul. They killed three unarmed aid workers and a driver from the New York-based International Rescue Committee (IRC). Dr. Kirk, who had just been appointed Adjunct Professor in McGill’s Faculty of Education, was one of the IRC workers who died in the attack, along with her colleagues Nicole Dial, Shirley Case and Mohammad Aimal. The Taliban quickly claimed they were responsible.

“This is truly tragic. Jackie was engaged in important work trying to improve the lives of people in Afghanistan, which was closely tied to her research on women’s access to education in developing countries,” said McGill Principal and Vice-Chancellor Heather Munroe-Blum at the time of the tragedy in August.

Dr. Kirk is survived by her husband Andrew, an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at McGill’s Faculty of Engineering, and Director of the McGill Institute for Advanced Materials.

“Please do not send flowers, but donations will be greatly appreciated,” he said. “We have created a new fund at McGill, the Jackie Kirk Memorial Fund, which will be used to support activities related to her work, such as scholarships for students from developing or conflict-affected countries. The IRC has also created a memorial fund to commemorate Jackie, Shirley, Nicole and Mohammed, which will go directly to supporting the education programs on the ground that Jackie worked so hard for.”

To make a donation:

Jackie Kirk Memorial Fund
c/o Katie Whitehead, DAR Officer
Faculty of Education
McGill University
3700 McTavish, Room 210
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
H3A 1Y2

Cheques should be made payable to McGill University, with “Jackie Kirk Fund” in the memo.

The Special Memorial Fund
International Rescue Committee
122 E. 42nd Street New York,
NY 10168-1289
USA

Or via the web at: www.theirc.org/where/afghanistan/in-memoriam.html