ABSTRACT
After 26 years living here, I was being turfed out. But after
it was finished, when you came and sat beside me and you
held my hand when I was crying … then I knew that I could
trust you.
Muriel, age 75, Sydney resident, 2005
We believe that trust is the factor that determines whether commu-
nity engagement with sustainability succeeds or fails. It’s vital to the
success of such important projects. Muriel, quoted above, relied on
her intuition when Wendy held her hand. Wendy turned out to be
trustworthy. Trust means assured reliance on the character, integ-
rity, strength or truth of someone or something. The adage that
trust is ‘earned by the drop and lost by the bucketful’ has direct
relevance in community engagement contexts. This chapter offers
some stories about hopefulness and breaches of trust.
