PublicForum Book Talk with Wendy Sarkissian

This PublicForum Book Talk features Australian community engagement practitioner and author Wendy Sarkissian. She is the co-author of Kitchen Table Sustainability: Practical Recipes for Community Engagement with Sustainability (with Steph Vajda and Yollana Shore, Nancy Hofer and Cathy Wilkinson). Published by Earthscan (2008), this timely book opens the door so that the theory and practice of sustainability can enter into the experience of the "everyday" and be released from the exclusive provinces of experts: planners, bureaucrats, scientists, intergovernmental panels, roundtables, cabinet tables and board tables. As the book explains, top-down approaches close the door to ordinary people, who, sitting at their kitchen tables, feel unable to have the informed conversations about sustaining our futures that every household needs to have. It proposes a model for participatory community engagement, education and development and provides both conceptual and practical tools for those working for and with communities who want to build a knowledgeable and truly sustainable society. Join us for an insightful exploration of practical approaches for transforming community engagement with Wendy during this December 2009 Book Talk.