[homeles_ot-l] We Make Change: Community Organizers Talk About What They Do--and Why. By Kristin Layng Szakos and Joe Szakos.

[lj1967 at sympatico.ca]

Subject:  A good text tool for Community Development Organizers working for equity, dignity, social-economic justice, green solutions, stopping hate crime, and sustainable health matters and quality of Life challenges.

We Make Change: Community Organizers Talk About What They Do--and Why.  By Kristin Layng Szakos<about:blank/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/103-3743176-5287037?_encoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Kristin Layng Szakos> and Joe Szakos<about:blank/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/103-3743176-5287037?_encoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Joe Szakos>.  

Key Phrases:  good community organizer<about:blank/phrase/good-community-organizer/ref=sip_top_0/103-3743176-5287037>, new organizers<about:blank/phrase/new-organizers/ref=sip_top_1/103-3743176-5287037>, living wage campaign<about:blank/phrase/living-wage-campaign/ref=sip_top_2/103-3743176-5287037>, community organizing<about:blank/phrase/community-organizing/ref=sip_bod_3>, social action, case studies, many organizers<about:blank/phrase/many-organizers/ref=sip_bod_4>, good organizer<about:blank/phrase/good-organizer/ref=sip_bod_5>, National People's Action<about:blank/phrase/National-People's-Action/ref=cap_bod_24>, Service Employees International Union<about:blank/phrase/Service-Employees-International-Union/ref=cap_bod_19>, Sierra Club<about:blank/phrase/Sierra-Club/ref=cap_bod_20>, etc.

List Price: $27.95 Price: $27.95 (Paperback).


Paperback: 280 pages Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press (June 29, 2007) Language: English ISBN-10: 082651555X ISBN-13: 978-0826515551 Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.9 x 0.9 inches Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds. 

Book Description:  Community organizers work at their jobs because they are passionate, because they believe that change is possible, and because they enjoy working with people. Although it's not an occupation that leads to great wealth, community organizers can make a living at it. They get salaries, pensions and health insurance. They raise families. They do well by doing good. This book explores the world of community organizing through the voices of real people working in the field, in small towns and city neighborhoods--women and men of different races and economic backgrounds, ranging in age from those in their twenties to those in their sixties. Fourteen in-depth profiles tell the life stories of a cross-section of the diverse people who choose the life of an organizer. Other chapters, focused on issues of organizing, are tapestries of experience woven from the 81 interviews the authors conducted. 

About the Author:
Kristin Layng Szakos is the former editor of The Appalachian Reader, a quarterly journal about citizen organizing in Appalachia. Joe Szakos has been the Executive Director of the Virginia Organizing Project since 1994. He was the founding coordinator of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth (1981-1993), as well as one of the founders of the Southern Empowerment Project and the Hungarian Environmental Partnership. 

Joe Szakos 

Joe Szakos (b. March 8, 1954) is a community organizer<about:blank/wiki/Community_organizer> and author. He was coordinator of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth<about:blank/wiki/Kentuckians_for_the_Commonwealth> (KFTC) from 1981 to 1993, and has been executive director of the Virginia Organizing Project since 1994.

 Early life:  Joseph Szakos was born March 8, 1954, in Greensburg, PA. His paternal grandparents were Hungarian immigrants, and his maternal grandparents were Italian immigrants. He earned a bachelors degree from Washington and Jefferson College, graduating in 1976 with honors in political science and sociology. He earned a masters degree from the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago in 1979.

Career as Community Organizer.

Szakos began his work in eastern Kentucky working on housing development in David (Floyd County<about:blank/wiki/Floyd_County>) in 1979. He worked as a reporter for the Martin Countian in Inez, Kentucky<about:blank/wiki/Inez,_Kentucky> in 1980-81, and field coordinator for the Appalachian Alliance in 1982. In December 1982 he became coordinator of the Kentucky Fair Tax Coalition (KFTC), which became Kentuckians For The Commonwealth in 1988. After ten years with KTFC, Szakos spent a year in 1993-94 as director of a community organizing project in Nagykovácsi, Hungary. He returned to the U.S. in 1994 to become the founding executive director of the Virginia Organizing Project.

In the "About the Author" paragraph in his 2005 paper<http://comm-org.wisc.edu/papers2005/szakos.htm>on the need for a collective recruitment plan for community organizers (published on the COMM-ORG website<http://comm-org.wisc.edu/>), he states that he is "currently working on two books on community organizing<about:blank/wiki/Community_organizing> with his wife, Kristin Layng Szakos. One book is based on more than 75 interviews with community organizers across the country about what they do and why they do it. The other is a compilation of essays written by very experienced rural community organizers, sharing some of the lessons they have learned."

 Bibliography

  a.. Kristin Layng Szakos and Joe Szakos, We Make Change: Community Organizers Talk about What They Do - and Why. (Vanderbilt University Press, 2007). 
Helpful Links:

Kentuckians For The Commonwealth: http://www.kftc.org<http://www.kftc.org/>

Welcome to KFTC
Kentuckians For The Commonwealth is a community of people taking action for justice. 

We work with people to organize in their home communities and across the state. 
We help everyday community members become extraordinary community leaders. 
We support community leaders as they build effective organizations. 
Together, we win important issue campaigns. 
If you want a better Kentucky - for all of us - join KFTC. 
Here you will find information, training, and people like you.


It's really a powerful force! 

KFTC is a great organization. I've learned a tremendous amount through being involved, through all the wonderful people who are involved. Every year is a new learning experience and every person is a new learning experience. I think that the only way we're going to set things right and change things that are wrong are by people coming together and working toward that change. It's going to take having a grassroots movement. Janet Tucker.

Virginia Organizing Project (VOP): http://www.virginia-organizing.org<http://www.virginia-organizing.org/>

The Virginia Organizing Project (VOP) is a statewide grassroots organization dedicated to challenging injustice by empowering people in local communities to address issues that affect the quality of their lives. VOP especially encourages the participation of those who have traditionally had little or no voice in our society. By building relationships with individuals and groups throughout the state, VOP strives to get them to work together, democratically and non-violently, for change. 

About VOP Home<about:blank../../index.php> Statement of Beliefs<about:blank../../principles.php> Who We Are/What We Do<about:blank../../who.php> Other VOP Programs<about:blank../../programs.php> Annual Report<about:blank../../annual_report.php> State Governing Board<about:blank../../board.php> VOP Staff<about:blank../../staff.php> Resources Understanding the Economy<about:blank../../economy.php> Organizing Toolbox<about:blank../../toolbox.php> VOP Newsmagazine<about:blank../../newsmag.php> Implementos para Organizar<about:blank../../implementos.php> Tools for Dismantling Racism<about:blank../../tools_dismantling.php> Recent Opinion Columns<about:blank../../opinion_columns.php> Recent Media Releases<about:blank../../media_releases.php> Research Related Sites<about:blank../../links.php> Take Action<about:blank../../action_alert.php> 

 Tuitio ad servitium pauperum: 

"La noblesse est soutenue au coeur -- Faire l'amour à la vie et le revel dans son esprit." ~François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire. 

"Those who do not feel pain much, seldom think that it is felt. And yes, to wipe all tears from all faces is a task too hard for mortals; but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power: yet the opportunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected with equal disregard of policy and goodness." ~ Samuel Johnson.

"Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit." ~Abbie Hoffman.

Live to make civil society every day -- Ne lache pas!

http://www.motherjones.com<http://www.motherjones.com/>

http://www.highlandercenter.org<http://www.highlandercenter.org/>

http://www.dwatch.ca<http://www.dwatch.ca/> 

http://ww.napo-onap.ca<http://ww.napo-onap.ca/>

http://homelessnation.org<about:blank>

http://www.cleangovernment.ca<about:blank>        

http://www.cleancorporations.ca<http://www.cleancorporations.ca/>

http://www.needmorfund.org<http://www.needmorfund.org/>

http://www.tdrc.net<http://www.tdrc.net/>

http://www.imaginaction.org<http://www.imaginaction.org/>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.web.net/lists/private/homeles_ot-l/attachments/20071122/3b38a576/attachment-0001.htm