MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NORDIK INSTITUTE CELEBRATES TEN YEARS OF COMMUNITY-BASED RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
Renowned community organizer and educator, Joan Kuyek to speak
October 31, 2017 – SAULT STE. MARIE, ON – NORDIK Institute is celebrating its 10-year anniversary at its upcoming annual general meeting slated for Thursday, November 2nd, beginning at 4:30 p.m. in the Wishart Library of Algoma University, featuring guest speaker, Joan Kuyek.
The business meeting will be followed by a reception in the foyer of the Wishart Library from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., followed by Joan Kuyek’s address, “Fighting for Hope” in the university’s Shingwauk Auditorium from 7 to 8:30 p.m.
Kuyek is a community organizer, mining analyst, and adult educator living in Ottawa. She was the founding National Co-ordinator of MiningWatch Canada from 1999-2009, and has taught Community Work at Carleton University and Community Economic and Social Development at Algoma University. She is author of Community Organizing: A Holistic Approach (2011) and a number of other books and publications. Before moving to Ottawa, Kuyek was a community organizer and facilitator for almost 30 years in Sudbury. Kuyek’s talk focuses on examples from her experience of how people resist forces that pillage our lives, lands and waters, how people create alternative ways to provide for their physical needs, and how to build a culture of hope.
NORDIK is a community-based research institute affiliated with Algoma University’s Community Economic and Social Development program. Its goal is to build Northern Ontario’s capacity to conduct research that contributes to social, economic and environmental justice in rural, Indigenous and northern communities and provides evidence for informed policy and decision making. Highlights of the past 10 years of change-making projects and research will be profiled in a retrospective poster display from October 30th to November 3rd in the foyer of the Wishart Library at Algoma University.
“We are excited to mark this milestone in NORDIK’s history with a celebration of community success stories from across the North,” says Sean Meades, Acting Director, NORDIK Institute. “NORDIK has partnered at local, regional, and international levels on over 100 projects, and the brilliant team of researchers, students and change-makers that have been part of NORDIK’s story have provided us with much celebrate over the past ten years.”
“NORDIK Institute is thrilled to have Joan Kuyek, a renowned community organizer, present at our 10-year celebration,” says Katie Elliott, Chair of NORDIK Institute’s Board of Directors. “Her presentation on the socially innovative ways in which people adapt relates directly to NORDIK’s vision of promoting more vibrant, caring and sustainable communities, and is sure to inspire all those in attendance.”
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For more information, please contact:
Sean Meades, Acting Director, NORDIK Institute, 705-949-2301, ext. 4235, or visit NORDIK Institute
