A documentary celebrating Dr Wendy Sarkissian
Donation protected
Please watch our fundraising campaign promotional film below...
On 6 February 2016, after watching her husband Karl drown in front of her, Wendy swam out of their upside down car and scrambled towards the bank of the Tweed River in Northern NSW, Australia.
In the coming months, facing the loss of her beloved, she was quickly forced to make important decisions about her life. She had to sell the house they had built, move from the tiny regional village, where they had shared much of their time together, and create a whole new life, while battling crippling grief and the traumatic psychological and physical effects of the crash and such dramatic life changes.
Simultaneously, her instincts for taking action drove her to build a campaign to pressure the local municipality (Tweed Shire Council) to do something about the roadway that has now (in November 2018) caused six deaths and many more serious injuries.
In this film, an internationally renowned planner, community engagement specialist, environmental ethicist and activist, Dr Wendy Sarkissian, a pioneering woman who has spent a lifetime agitating for change against institutional and corporate power, shares the story of what she’s called her “survivor mission” to honour her husband’s tragic death.
Join us in making a feature documentary about Wendy’s life, about Karl and their life together, and about her campaign for justice and road safety.
We have already self-funded the completion of a significant amount of filming for this project. We just need your help to complete the film.
We are initially asking for donations to raise $5,000 to complete our filming. This includes costs for travel around Australia to meet with people who have personal and professional connections to Wendy, as well as road safety specialists, community planners and activists, who will contribute to the film. This funding will also cover costs to complete filming (including cutaways and location shots) in NSW and Queensland.
When we achieve our primary goal, we are aiming to raise a further $10,000 (through crowdfunding and/or grants) to contribute towards post-production, including editing, soundtrack, stock footage, and mastering.
We don't feel we're asking for excessive sums of money to complete this film. This is our passion project. We've funded a considerable amount already. We hope you believe in this project and Wendy's story enough to send a little love and support and help us to cover basic costs so we can properly share this film.
All donations will receive acknowledgements through social media and online promotions of the film, as well as being included in film credits.
A little about Wendy
Wendy’s story is powerful because it shares her experiences of a lifetime of struggle against and speaking truth to power, both professionally and personally.
Through her eyes, we join her journey as she agitates for change within the gendered landscape of decision making and power. Wendy has been a teacher, an advocate for women’s access to public housing, a social and community planner, and, throughout all of these roles, an activist. This documentary aims to share the common threads among these experiences, culminating in her Survivor Mission to honour her husband Karl’s death, which was caused by a completely preventable road crash.
She’s lived a remarkable life.
"I had had a pretty interesting life before my survivor mission began. I’d been married three times, lived in several foreign countries, been a courageous community planner in risky contexts and pioneered many innovative approaches in my work life. I grew up in a Canadian family that was more like a train wreck than a family. Working out that I had to escape as early as possible, I married young to an ambitious academic who spent most of his life in his head. One part that was not in his head was his affair with his student that left me, at aged 32, divorced and heartbroken.
Initially, I trained to be a high school English teacher but, blessedly, fate led me to the field of planning, where I had a great and exciting professional life for many decades in Australia.
In my thirties -- in Adelaide, South Australia -- I was a committed feminist activist, focussing primarily on women's housing needs. I was a thorn in the side of the State Government. I loved my activist activities -- largely because they were so collaborative. Every single action required consensus in the heady days of second-wave feminism. And Adelaide in the 1970s was a hotbed of that!
In the late 1980s, as the global sustainability crisis deepened, I became curious about why my planning colleagues appeared to be ignoring what seemed to me to be major planning imperatives: sea-level rise and climate change. I enrolled as a full-time PhD student -- finally in environmental ethics -- and spent a challenging year living in primitive conditions in the tropical bush in northern Australia. I learned a lot about independence -- and interdependence -- during that time. And It strengthened my commitments to activism.
After my lonely rural sojourn, I advertised for a partner and found the love of my life: Karl. We couldn't believe our luck. I was 50 and he was 45. He responded to my newspaper advertisement (that was only 25 words and not about environmental philosophy) with a passionate explanation of the Gaia hypothesis: the very topic I was studying for my PhD.
Ours was a bumpy ride, smoothed by a huge, trusting love. Karl entered university and obtained two degrees and then became my trusted (if eccentric) professional assistant. On many levels, we were a great match. I had found a true soulmate in Karl and he had found a home from his wandering in me, and, ultimately, in the radical Nimbin community, which he loved with all his heart.
We built a life together while I continued with my professional career in community engagement and housing. Karl helped with my professional projects, volunteered in the Nimbin community and built our dream house. My work has seen me present at conferences around the world, manage complex engagement projects for which we’ve received over forty professional awards, receive lifetime fellowships with planning and community safety organisations and continue to advocate for representation and inclusion in public planning processes. Recently, the Australia-based engagement advocacy organisation, Engage2Act, announced that their annual Global Community Engagement Day would be held on my birthday. My life has been blessed. But there have been a few struggles!"
After losing her husband, Wendy wanted someone in power to care….and to act
Wendy’s survivor mission urged the local government ( Tweed Shire Council) to repair a 650-metre section of undivided rural road near Uki in northern NSW that that has claimed six lives (and many more serious injuries) in the last eight years. Paramedics, police, locals … everyone wanted that notorious stretch of road fixed.
Wendy wanted them to properly implement a Safe System or Vision Zero -- , an approach that provides a model for road managers to design and maintain roads to be “forgiving”, so that the inevitability of human error won’t result in the loss of life or serious injury. As this policy has been adopted nationally and by all local governments in Australia, Wendy was asking Council to adhere to the goals and framework that were meant to guide them.
And she wanted them to adopt a more caring, responsive approach to supporting survivors of road crashes.
Yet, Wendy’s experience left her far from feeling supported or confident that change would happen that might prevent future fatalities.
On 12 September (2016), supported by two close friends, I venture onto a new path. I deliver my self-styled Victim Impact Statement to Tweed Shire Council, the municipality responsible for the road where our crash occurred. Preparation for this political action triggers strong feelings of loss in me. It’s the first time since Karl’s memorial that I am putting words to my sorrow.
I take a framed photograph of Karl to the meeting. Amazingly, finding I can “read” the meeting dynamics, I glimpse something of my old life returning. That meeting is the beginning of my road safety activism, my “survivor mission”. I feel empowered, regardless of the meeting’s negative results. I discover that empowerment is a secret ingredient in healing.
Council cut short Wendy’s statement, demanding that she restrict her remarks to “the circumstances of the crash” and not to any impacts she had experienced.
“What’s a Victim Impact Statement without impacts?” she wondered.
What had begun as an “information session” to raise staff awareness flourished into full-blown activism.
Struggling with grief and trauma, Wendy decided to take action
With no other option to achieve justice, Wendy embarked on an 18-month campaign she called her “survivor mission.” She wanted Council to acknowledge that, at a minimum, a guard rail should have been installed along that dangerous section of road a long time ago.
She wanted them to acknowledge that police, other first responders and the community had been demanding action for a significant time and their pleas had been ignored. Most of all, she wanted them to understand that her only interest was in making sure that no one else would have to experience loss of life or serious injury on that road because of its poor design and lack of maintenance.
Wendy wrote countless emails to Council, most receiving responses that suggested they were not interested in dialogue or hearing her story. She organised protest actions at the crash location to raise public awareness. She directly lobbied Council by describing better ways they could handle her situation, asking them to upgrade a the road and properly implement the Vision Zero model. She held a media conference and contributed articles on her experience to local media and road safety publications around Australia and internationally.
Wendy’s campaign contributed to the eventual rebuilding of that 650-metre section of road, including the installation of guardrails.
On 30 September 2018, a week after the road upgrades were completed, Wendy co-managed the Bless this Road event, a moving community gathering in Uki, that included a road safety education workshop, celebration, healing rituals, expressions of gratitude, gifts for first responders, tears and song. Initially designed by Wendy as a way to bring her mourning journey to a close, this event engaged seventy people who had a connection with those who had died on the Kyogle Road over recent years.
During Bless this Road, a moving moment for everyone was when a senior paramedic wept, as he spoke about Bless this Road being one of the most significant moments of his long career. Wendy had designed, promoted and facilitated a new model for responding to unnecessary loss of life on our roads: a model that included education, advocacy, grieving, celebration and a community approach to showing support and care.
But there’s more to the story.
Wendy’s continued research and questioning with representatives of peak bodies, advocacy groups, planning agencies, road safety specialists and engineers continues to reveal major problems in the way Australian roads are designed and managed. She explores ways we can move on from a “behavioural” approach (blaming drivers) to adopt a new culture that focuses on safer systems and embraces community engagement in road planning.
Make a donation and join us to share Wendy’s story
Now we are preparing to share Wendy’s journey by completing this documentary.
My aim in making this film is to share the remarkable story of Wendy’s life and to inspire people to take action when they are facing injustice or are eager to create change. As she is an internationally renowned planner and community engagement specialist, Wendy’s voice also encourages government agencies to understand and value the need for care, dialogue and inclusion in responding to both the effects of road crashes and to the ways in which our roads are designed and managed.
While we’ve completed a fair amount of filming already, including filming the Bless this Road event, there is still much to do.
With over 50 years of Wendy’s professional life and activism to compile, we’re currently working through mountains of photos, film and articles a for a significant section of the film that shares Wendy’s personal and professional life, from her birth in the harsh mining town of Sudbury in Ontario, Canada, to being the youngest person appointed to the South Australian Housing Trust Board and the first woman to study planning in South Australia -- to the many social change campaigns and community planning projects she’s championed.
We’re also continuing to research and write the film outline, bringing together Wendy’s personal story, her professional life, her life with Karl, her grief and trauma following the crash and losing Karl, and her survivor mission campaign.
Wendy’s is a big story. It requires us to talk to many people around Australia. Some of those we interview will provide insight into Wendy’s experience regarding the crash and losing Karl. Some will talk to her campaign and how Wendy has persevered through personal grief and trauma to maintain her demand for the roadway to be repaired. Others will talk about Wendy’s lifetime of advocacy and campaigning. They may tell us about her struggles and courage in speaking truth to power, while her work promoting community voice and influence was challenged by her presence as a woman in male-dominated decision-making contexts.
We hope to speak with more people who can contribute to her stories of struggling for change as a professional woman working to promote community voice and influence in the ways that decision making and planning happens.
Through Wendy’s professional network (and assisted by her considerable professional stature), we have access to respected voices who are willing to contribute to this story.
We just need your support to make this happen.
We hope you want to join our campaign
Our initial goal includes funding for:
Drone hire $2,000
Sound recording $1,000
Flights, accommodation and transport $2,000
TOTAL $5,000
Our Secondary Goals include:
Editing and grading $7,500
Stock purchases $1,000
Sound engineering $500
Soundtrack $1,000
TOTAL $10,000
About Steph Vajda, the filmmaker
I am a cross-cultural community engagement specialist, creative producer, community cultural development practitioner and filmmaker. My approach to my work is based on engagement, dialogue and growing relationships with communities to uncover and share stories that encourage understanding, awareness and inclusion.
For me, strengthening a community's ability to respond to difficulties, include those who need support and vision a shared future together requires finding creative ways to encourage people to connect: with each other; with concepts of community; with notions of acceptance, inclusion and belonging; with individual and collective visions for the future; with enterprise and public spaces; and with creative ideas for facilitating collaboration and advocacy that lead to social change.
I have delivered my work through Ferment Collaborate for the past 10 years. I also manage Partnerships and Social Enterprise development with CuriousWorks, a community arts organisation that creates and presents stories with and by people from underrepresented people and communities in Western Sydney. As part of this role I mentor and support a group of wonderful and talented young up and coming media makers known as the Curious Creators.
This project is special to me. Wendy is a courageous, talented and inspirational leader who has always worked tirelessly to include everyone's voice in the way our communities are managed and planned for. As a close friend, I feel deeply for her loss, and at the same time am awestruck by her relentless drive and motivation to achieve social justice.
Thanks for reading through our campaign, and if you're able to make a donation, thank you - every amount counts and we appreciate your support!
Warmly
Steph Vajda
On 6 February 2016, after watching her husband Karl drown in front of her, Wendy swam out of their upside down car and scrambled towards the bank of the Tweed River in Northern NSW, Australia.
In the coming months, facing the loss of her beloved, she was quickly forced to make important decisions about her life. She had to sell the house they had built, move from the tiny regional village, where they had shared much of their time together, and create a whole new life, while battling crippling grief and the traumatic psychological and physical effects of the crash and such dramatic life changes.
Simultaneously, her instincts for taking action drove her to build a campaign to pressure the local municipality (Tweed Shire Council) to do something about the roadway that has now (in November 2018) caused six deaths and many more serious injuries.
In this film, an internationally renowned planner, community engagement specialist, environmental ethicist and activist, Dr Wendy Sarkissian, a pioneering woman who has spent a lifetime agitating for change against institutional and corporate power, shares the story of what she’s called her “survivor mission” to honour her husband’s tragic death.
Join us in making a feature documentary about Wendy’s life, about Karl and their life together, and about her campaign for justice and road safety.
We have already self-funded the completion of a significant amount of filming for this project. We just need your help to complete the film.
We are initially asking for donations to raise $5,000 to complete our filming. This includes costs for travel around Australia to meet with people who have personal and professional connections to Wendy, as well as road safety specialists, community planners and activists, who will contribute to the film. This funding will also cover costs to complete filming (including cutaways and location shots) in NSW and Queensland.
When we achieve our primary goal, we are aiming to raise a further $10,000 (through crowdfunding and/or grants) to contribute towards post-production, including editing, soundtrack, stock footage, and mastering.
We don't feel we're asking for excessive sums of money to complete this film. This is our passion project. We've funded a considerable amount already. We hope you believe in this project and Wendy's story enough to send a little love and support and help us to cover basic costs so we can properly share this film.
All donations will receive acknowledgements through social media and online promotions of the film, as well as being included in film credits.
A little about Wendy
Wendy’s story is powerful because it shares her experiences of a lifetime of struggle against and speaking truth to power, both professionally and personally.
Through her eyes, we join her journey as she agitates for change within the gendered landscape of decision making and power. Wendy has been a teacher, an advocate for women’s access to public housing, a social and community planner, and, throughout all of these roles, an activist. This documentary aims to share the common threads among these experiences, culminating in her Survivor Mission to honour her husband Karl’s death, which was caused by a completely preventable road crash.
She’s lived a remarkable life.
"I had had a pretty interesting life before my survivor mission began. I’d been married three times, lived in several foreign countries, been a courageous community planner in risky contexts and pioneered many innovative approaches in my work life. I grew up in a Canadian family that was more like a train wreck than a family. Working out that I had to escape as early as possible, I married young to an ambitious academic who spent most of his life in his head. One part that was not in his head was his affair with his student that left me, at aged 32, divorced and heartbroken.
Initially, I trained to be a high school English teacher but, blessedly, fate led me to the field of planning, where I had a great and exciting professional life for many decades in Australia.
In my thirties -- in Adelaide, South Australia -- I was a committed feminist activist, focussing primarily on women's housing needs. I was a thorn in the side of the State Government. I loved my activist activities -- largely because they were so collaborative. Every single action required consensus in the heady days of second-wave feminism. And Adelaide in the 1970s was a hotbed of that!
In the late 1980s, as the global sustainability crisis deepened, I became curious about why my planning colleagues appeared to be ignoring what seemed to me to be major planning imperatives: sea-level rise and climate change. I enrolled as a full-time PhD student -- finally in environmental ethics -- and spent a challenging year living in primitive conditions in the tropical bush in northern Australia. I learned a lot about independence -- and interdependence -- during that time. And It strengthened my commitments to activism.
After my lonely rural sojourn, I advertised for a partner and found the love of my life: Karl. We couldn't believe our luck. I was 50 and he was 45. He responded to my newspaper advertisement (that was only 25 words and not about environmental philosophy) with a passionate explanation of the Gaia hypothesis: the very topic I was studying for my PhD.
Ours was a bumpy ride, smoothed by a huge, trusting love. Karl entered university and obtained two degrees and then became my trusted (if eccentric) professional assistant. On many levels, we were a great match. I had found a true soulmate in Karl and he had found a home from his wandering in me, and, ultimately, in the radical Nimbin community, which he loved with all his heart.
We built a life together while I continued with my professional career in community engagement and housing. Karl helped with my professional projects, volunteered in the Nimbin community and built our dream house. My work has seen me present at conferences around the world, manage complex engagement projects for which we’ve received over forty professional awards, receive lifetime fellowships with planning and community safety organisations and continue to advocate for representation and inclusion in public planning processes. Recently, the Australia-based engagement advocacy organisation, Engage2Act, announced that their annual Global Community Engagement Day would be held on my birthday. My life has been blessed. But there have been a few struggles!"
After losing her husband, Wendy wanted someone in power to care….and to act
Wendy’s survivor mission urged the local government ( Tweed Shire Council) to repair a 650-metre section of undivided rural road near Uki in northern NSW that that has claimed six lives (and many more serious injuries) in the last eight years. Paramedics, police, locals … everyone wanted that notorious stretch of road fixed.
Wendy wanted them to properly implement a Safe System or Vision Zero -- , an approach that provides a model for road managers to design and maintain roads to be “forgiving”, so that the inevitability of human error won’t result in the loss of life or serious injury. As this policy has been adopted nationally and by all local governments in Australia, Wendy was asking Council to adhere to the goals and framework that were meant to guide them.
And she wanted them to adopt a more caring, responsive approach to supporting survivors of road crashes.
Yet, Wendy’s experience left her far from feeling supported or confident that change would happen that might prevent future fatalities.
On 12 September (2016), supported by two close friends, I venture onto a new path. I deliver my self-styled Victim Impact Statement to Tweed Shire Council, the municipality responsible for the road where our crash occurred. Preparation for this political action triggers strong feelings of loss in me. It’s the first time since Karl’s memorial that I am putting words to my sorrow.
I take a framed photograph of Karl to the meeting. Amazingly, finding I can “read” the meeting dynamics, I glimpse something of my old life returning. That meeting is the beginning of my road safety activism, my “survivor mission”. I feel empowered, regardless of the meeting’s negative results. I discover that empowerment is a secret ingredient in healing.
Council cut short Wendy’s statement, demanding that she restrict her remarks to “the circumstances of the crash” and not to any impacts she had experienced.
“What’s a Victim Impact Statement without impacts?” she wondered.
What had begun as an “information session” to raise staff awareness flourished into full-blown activism.
Struggling with grief and trauma, Wendy decided to take action
With no other option to achieve justice, Wendy embarked on an 18-month campaign she called her “survivor mission.” She wanted Council to acknowledge that, at a minimum, a guard rail should have been installed along that dangerous section of road a long time ago.
She wanted them to acknowledge that police, other first responders and the community had been demanding action for a significant time and their pleas had been ignored. Most of all, she wanted them to understand that her only interest was in making sure that no one else would have to experience loss of life or serious injury on that road because of its poor design and lack of maintenance.
Wendy wrote countless emails to Council, most receiving responses that suggested they were not interested in dialogue or hearing her story. She organised protest actions at the crash location to raise public awareness. She directly lobbied Council by describing better ways they could handle her situation, asking them to upgrade a the road and properly implement the Vision Zero model. She held a media conference and contributed articles on her experience to local media and road safety publications around Australia and internationally.
Wendy’s campaign contributed to the eventual rebuilding of that 650-metre section of road, including the installation of guardrails.
On 30 September 2018, a week after the road upgrades were completed, Wendy co-managed the Bless this Road event, a moving community gathering in Uki, that included a road safety education workshop, celebration, healing rituals, expressions of gratitude, gifts for first responders, tears and song. Initially designed by Wendy as a way to bring her mourning journey to a close, this event engaged seventy people who had a connection with those who had died on the Kyogle Road over recent years.
During Bless this Road, a moving moment for everyone was when a senior paramedic wept, as he spoke about Bless this Road being one of the most significant moments of his long career. Wendy had designed, promoted and facilitated a new model for responding to unnecessary loss of life on our roads: a model that included education, advocacy, grieving, celebration and a community approach to showing support and care.
But there’s more to the story.
Wendy’s continued research and questioning with representatives of peak bodies, advocacy groups, planning agencies, road safety specialists and engineers continues to reveal major problems in the way Australian roads are designed and managed. She explores ways we can move on from a “behavioural” approach (blaming drivers) to adopt a new culture that focuses on safer systems and embraces community engagement in road planning.
Make a donation and join us to share Wendy’s story
Now we are preparing to share Wendy’s journey by completing this documentary.
My aim in making this film is to share the remarkable story of Wendy’s life and to inspire people to take action when they are facing injustice or are eager to create change. As she is an internationally renowned planner and community engagement specialist, Wendy’s voice also encourages government agencies to understand and value the need for care, dialogue and inclusion in responding to both the effects of road crashes and to the ways in which our roads are designed and managed.
While we’ve completed a fair amount of filming already, including filming the Bless this Road event, there is still much to do.
With over 50 years of Wendy’s professional life and activism to compile, we’re currently working through mountains of photos, film and articles a for a significant section of the film that shares Wendy’s personal and professional life, from her birth in the harsh mining town of Sudbury in Ontario, Canada, to being the youngest person appointed to the South Australian Housing Trust Board and the first woman to study planning in South Australia -- to the many social change campaigns and community planning projects she’s championed.
We’re also continuing to research and write the film outline, bringing together Wendy’s personal story, her professional life, her life with Karl, her grief and trauma following the crash and losing Karl, and her survivor mission campaign.
Wendy’s is a big story. It requires us to talk to many people around Australia. Some of those we interview will provide insight into Wendy’s experience regarding the crash and losing Karl. Some will talk to her campaign and how Wendy has persevered through personal grief and trauma to maintain her demand for the roadway to be repaired. Others will talk about Wendy’s lifetime of advocacy and campaigning. They may tell us about her struggles and courage in speaking truth to power, while her work promoting community voice and influence was challenged by her presence as a woman in male-dominated decision-making contexts.
We hope to speak with more people who can contribute to her stories of struggling for change as a professional woman working to promote community voice and influence in the ways that decision making and planning happens.
Through Wendy’s professional network (and assisted by her considerable professional stature), we have access to respected voices who are willing to contribute to this story.
We just need your support to make this happen.
We hope you want to join our campaign
Our initial goal includes funding for:
Drone hire $2,000
Sound recording $1,000
Flights, accommodation and transport $2,000
TOTAL $5,000
Our Secondary Goals include:
Editing and grading $7,500
Stock purchases $1,000
Sound engineering $500
Soundtrack $1,000
TOTAL $10,000
About Steph Vajda, the filmmaker
I am a cross-cultural community engagement specialist, creative producer, community cultural development practitioner and filmmaker. My approach to my work is based on engagement, dialogue and growing relationships with communities to uncover and share stories that encourage understanding, awareness and inclusion.
For me, strengthening a community's ability to respond to difficulties, include those who need support and vision a shared future together requires finding creative ways to encourage people to connect: with each other; with concepts of community; with notions of acceptance, inclusion and belonging; with individual and collective visions for the future; with enterprise and public spaces; and with creative ideas for facilitating collaboration and advocacy that lead to social change.
I have delivered my work through Ferment Collaborate for the past 10 years. I also manage Partnerships and Social Enterprise development with CuriousWorks, a community arts organisation that creates and presents stories with and by people from underrepresented people and communities in Western Sydney. As part of this role I mentor and support a group of wonderful and talented young up and coming media makers known as the Curious Creators.
This project is special to me. Wendy is a courageous, talented and inspirational leader who has always worked tirelessly to include everyone's voice in the way our communities are managed and planned for. As a close friend, I feel deeply for her loss, and at the same time am awestruck by her relentless drive and motivation to achieve social justice.
Thanks for reading through our campaign, and if you're able to make a donation, thank you - every amount counts and we appreciate your support!
Warmly
Steph Vajda
Organizer
Steph Leppard
Organizer
Wavell Heights QLD
