Older Adult Advisory Board
Wendy Sarkissian, PhD
Wendy is an award-winning author, community planner, educator, activist, and environmental ethicist who has received over 40 professional awards. She holds a doctorate in environmental ethics from Murdoch University in Western Australia and is a Life Fellow of the Planning Institute of Australia.
Wendy's research and writing focus on climate breakdown, as well as community engagement and empowerment.
She is the lead author of the award-winning book Kitchen Table Sustainability: Practical Recipes for Community Engagement with Sustainability. Now at age 81, she focuses on taking personal responsibility for sustainability issues such as climate breakdown, ways of nurturing an engaged citizenry, and fostering public judgement. Wendy has authored several professional books. Her memoir, Creeksong: One Woman Sings the Climate Blues (Tellwell Talent, 2023) emerged in part from her 1996 doctoral dissertation.
In the COPE project, as a member of the older adults advisory board, Wendy seeks to empower the voices of older adults, highlighting their unique perceptions and experiences of cities, climate breakdown and heat stress.
CHARMIAN BURSILL
Now retired, Charmian was born in East Sheen, London, UK, but spent most of her life living overseas with her family. She attended the National Theatre School in Montreal, where she completed a course in technical and stage management before going on to work professionally in theatres across Canada and the UK. After eight years, she returned to the Maritimes and became a student at University of New Brunswick (UNB), where she graduated with first-class honours in English and German, and a postgraduate degree in Education. She later returned to the UK, where she undertook a variety of roles, ultimately becoming Export Administrator for a robotics firm in London.
Members of the Bursill family have resided in the West, mainly Vancouver, since approximately 1910, and it seemed natural to Charmian to return to Vancouver, where she has been living for about 25 years, tutoring English, after a year teaching English in South Korea. She enjoys writing poetry and short stories and has successfully published a small selection. Her other interests include non-credit courses at SFU, supporting wildlife, voluntary work with her local constituency office and most recently her Strata Council. As a born stage manager, Charmian enjoys organizing, planning, and participating in projects, with the COPE project being an important one as she enters this later stage of life. It seems clear that climate change, which appears to have resulted in much hotter temperatures globally, is affecting many,particularly seniors' health and well being.
Charmian is therefore very pleased and honoured to have this opportunity to make any useful contribution that she can.
Mark Cassidy
Mark is retired and lives in a small village in the west of Scotland. He spent 15 years working as an officer in UK Customs, followed by 25 years in IT for the UK Forestry Commission in Edinburgh, before retiring for a quieter, simpler life - although 6 grandchildren have ensured that ambition has never been realised! Since retirement Mark has indulged in several passions including good literature, history, and music. As a volunteer, he has taken part in a number of Strathclyde University research projects and engaged in personal study with their excellent Centre for Lifelong Learning. With his parents, he has witnessed the almost inevitable need for assistance and advice as older people gradually become more vulnerable to all sorts of external factors over which they have little control. Mark hopes that he can assist in some ways with the COPE project in making that assistance or advice a little more useful.
Maggie Paterson
Maggie’s career in community learning and development, along with her background in community-focused approaches and co-production, brings valuable experience and a network of useful contacts to the project. Now retired, Maggie's experience leading initiatives to improve the wellbeing of older people, in collaboration with health and social services partners and the voluntary sector, leaves her well-placed to contribute to COPE's success.
She hopes to draw on the knowledge and experience from her working life, combined with personal reflections on the challenges of growing older in a changing climate, to help COPE have a meaningful and significant impact.