Nadine Clopton
Meet Nadine:
Nadine is an outstanding young woman, who has achieved so much. Nadine serves as the Youth Representative to the United Nations for CLAN, alongside her vast array of other work, as the Non-Indigenous Youth Representative for IndigenousNCDs, the Director on the Global NGO Executive Committee, Chair of the Youth & Intergenerational Subcommittee of this. She was deeply involved in the Global Youth Climate Action Declaration, and is currently working on a film based on climate change from the perspective of the younger generation. Nadine is also building up her sustainable consulting business, Conscious Consulting. This has all stemmed from Nadine’s study at LeHigh University, with her undergraduate study in Public Health, and her completion of a Masters of Environmental Policy as of 2020. It was an honour to talk with Nadine about her work, and deep passion for and involvement in the environmental sustainability discourse, specifically her advocacy for vital Indigenous involvement. Nadine is a motivated and motivational individual.
CLAN's Youth Advisors Grace and Sienna were fortunate to meet up with Nadine to learn more about her story. Heres how our interview went:
What motivates you to work hard, and to do what you do?
A really deep love for the planet, for humanity and, yeah, it’s rooted a lot in compassion and wanting to become a good ancestor. So, doing whatever that entails in this lifetime, and for me, a lot of how that involves is thinking about systems change as an act of love and reimagination, so instead of trying to pick apart what's there and what’s very very evidently broken, looking it at the perspective from, “how can we come together regardless of where we’re at on the political spectrum and really reimagine the world from the ground up and create systems and structures and policies that help to best support that?”.
What inspired you to start working with CLAN?
So, that was like 6 years ago which is crazy to think about, it's been a really really beautiful journey with CLAN. You know, my undergraduate institution Lehigh, had a partnership with the UN, they had been working with the clan for a number of years, and when I saw the ad pop up - “CLAN is looking for a youth rep” - I was really drawn to the work of CLAN because it’s not done in a way that's technocratic, it’s not done in a way that’s like “we know what's best for you people and community, here’s the solution that we’re going to provide for you, you’re going to accept it blah blah blah”, no, it’s like “lets send you the voices of children and family, lets meet them where they’re at in terms of what their needs might be” and so that I was really drawn to. Of course I did my undergrad in public health, so the focus of health [was very important]. I myself live in a household with a bunch of chronic illnesses - my mum is a T1D - so growing up with that in mind, it was always very very central. So the opportunity to work on behalf of CLAN and, you know, raise the voice of CLAN and share the work at the UN, it really was just a lovely lovely opportunity. Through the years also the shift on focusing heavily on indigenous communities, and that work has been really one of my favourite parts as well.
What was your role with CLAN?
With CLAN, I've been the NGO youth representative, so basically what that means is you hold a badge and you have UN-access to the premises of the UN, and what you choose to do with that is entirely up to you. So, for me, I saw it as an opportunity to engage with as many people as possible and hear as many stories and share the stories of what was happening on the ground with CLAN. That took me to all sorts of places from the UN in New York to the UN in Geneva where I ended up serving as a youth rep there somehow - first youth rep to serve abroad in both Geneva and New York, so that was a really cool opportunity. Attended the 71st world health assembly, about pandemic preparedness - that's really weird in retrospect. Yeah, just the ability to attend so many different conferences and meetings and to really interface with the world of public health as it exists in the international sphere was really fascinating and I think one of my absolute favourite memories of being a youth rep with clan is actually when we brought Caitlyn, Barry and Zac - three indigenous people, two from Canada and 1 from the US - and we brought them to the UN, to the 3rd high level meeting on NCDs which was basically the preliminary hearing of that. Being able to witness the indigenous perspective as it was woven into the conference was really awesome and to see that representation come to fruition whereas otherwise there were not other Indigenous people in the room (to our eyes). Being part of those experiences and being able to share the awesome work that CLAN is doing, you know, at the end of the day I'm the person that just gets to go and be in the room at UN but its really the people on the ground - Kate of course - who are doing the most critical and important work. Just grateful to be a part of it.
What notable experiences did you have CLAN that impacted your worldview or perspective, or inspired you? In what ways were you impacted?
I mean I think that (Indigenous people going to UN) that was really, back in those years was some of my first encounters with understanding Indigenous philosophy and the interrelatedness between the wellbeing of the fabric of community, the wellbeing of ecosystem and the wellbeing of self and how all of those things interconnect. I think in my work with CLAN, of course in the US you don't have much exposure to the stories of actual Indigenous people other than the really worked way they present it to you in history classes, so you have to discover that for yourself. I think that in working with CLAN I got a lot more exposure to that than a lot of my colleagues in the US, and I think that's also a testament to how Australia is much farther along - still not perfect - in that regard. That was a really powerful eye opening [experience]. I got to attend the kickoff for Indigenous NCDs in Geneva during the World Health Assembly and to be in that space they just had so created a sacred space at what otherwise was a conference, that moved me in a big way. Outside of my work with CLAN, this past year, in lockdown basically, I’ve had the chance to interface a lot with Indigenous colleagues and I'm just so continuously humbled and blown away by their way of being in the world, and it’s really inspired me in my own reflections. And so, I actually from January to June did this like 6 month inner development process journey thing through purpose guides institute and it culminated in sort of a pancultural adaptation of an Indigenous ceremony. So to be able to connect with those practices, of course in a pancultural Westernised sort of way, it reminded me a lot of what it is to be fundamentally human and has so grounded itself at the core of where I am hoping to direct my energy to direct my career going forward. So it’s been powerful all around and coming back into that perspective of needing to live in the right relationship and reciprocity with mother earth and with each other that's been really huge.
What was the most rewarding thing about working with CLAN, and how have you carried that with you? Were there any key lessons you drew from this?
CLAN really gave me the jumpstart in my career - so there’s two directions that really goes in - the more personal direction which like for me CLAN did give me the jumpstart in my career which has absolutely been a huge huge door opener and its through my work with CLAN that I've come to understand a lot of the importance of a holistic approach to any kind of change and you know seeing how the right to health is tied in with so many other areas of wellbeing and just really getting to see that the community is at the fundamental centre of positive change and impact just has been really key. It’s hard to pinpoint one specific moment because it has all felt so impactful. It has opened so many doors for me both as a human and as a professional and for that I am forever grateful. Just the opportunity to be in a place like the United Nations and share stories of the young people on the ground that CLAN had been working with and to try and make connections and partnerships wherever possible has been huge. I personally hope to be able to give back to CLAN more and more as the years go on and yeah it's a continuation of my favourite moments.
What do you think you’d be doing, or how do you think your outlook would be different had you not worked with CLAN?
I think it would be a lot less grounded in real life experience and a lot more theoretical. My undergrad was Public Health and Political Science with a sustainable development focus and then my Masters was Environmental Policy. CLAN gave me this really unique framework for approaching any kind of change and I really think that it has laid such a strong foundation on which to build everything else so it comes in at the most fundamental of levels for me, so I think it would be profoundly different. Particularly thinking of the work with Indigenous people, and the of course I owe an enormous amount to my Indigenous colleagues and keepers of Indigenous knowledge for helping me to reconnect both within myself with the ancestors of the land here, and with also seeking out my own culture’s Indigenous traditions and trying to remember that we all in some point of our lineages had a time where we were living in right relationship with ourselves and with the land and with each other, and so CLAN comes in at the foundation and sets really good roots to build everything else from. Well, I’m not Native American by any stretch of the imagination, you know my Dad's side were English colonists but even that goes back to celtic routes. On my Mum's side my mum came to the country as a refugee - totally different background. There’s always those core aspects of the self that are Indigenous (for a lack of a better term) that are grounded in that right relationship and reciprocity with the earth, and then with each other. So helping ourselves to remember that and find our anchor again.
How has COVID impacted the area where you live?
So COVID has had.. Well of course not an equitable impact across the board - urban areas were definitely disproportionately impacted by covid, particularly areas that have a lot of high exposure to environmental health inequities, like pre existing challenges so you're seeing those areas the hardest. I never got COVID through the entire thing so that is a direct function of privilege, so keeping that in mind and remembering that it is a privilege to be able to work from home and to isolate, and to be able to get everything you need and bring it back to your safe little home base. Yeah, COVID is ripping and tearing through the US right now, our local hospital the beds are full with Delta patients, so it's an interesting, very interesting time to be alive, surely going to be weird to tell our grandchildren about what's happening.
Has your work with CLAN impacted the way you think about COVID or your actions relating to the pandemic?
I think it comes back to that community centre[d approach] and not thinking about things in terms of ‘this is what you have to do’ but like ‘what do you need in this time in this moment’ - what resources are available to people, what resources aren’t, what does power look like in any given setting, like who has power, who doesn't, and just like having a child-centric focus too is huge. Because [with] any good policy making, any good public health response, if you centre the wellbeing of children you are inherently going to have everything else fall into place in a good way. So yeah, CLAN again is definitely, again really foundational in the way it's impacted me and how I think about this stuff. I think also a compassion[ate] lens because I know a lot of people are talking about like ‘anti-vaxxers this anti vaxers that’ but its like at the core things you have to be able to listen to people and understand why is it feeling the way you are about this and how can we have a discussion to be able to meet in the middle. That and also just thinking about equitable distribution of vaccines and also what constitutes good public health guidance like because seeing how COVID was handled, honestly as someone who studied public health, I’m a bit disappointed at how they went about it, because there was no utter centring of how do you care for yourself in general, and no utter - nobody was coming on the air and being like here go get a vaccine and here are things you can do to support your immune system like B3, zinc - there was no emphasis on that. So thinking about the systemic problems related to why something like COVID is as much of a problem as it is, and also just putting on hypercritical goggles and seeing some really clear gaps in our system have been especially clear.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
I am building up my consulting business so I definitely see that continuing to develop but I do want to go back and get my PhD, so probably studying for a doctorate and to bounce off what you were saying about mental health and emotional wellbeing, that's actually a major focus of what I want to do my PHD on - looking at how you can weave in emotional wellness and wholeness into policy making and into systems change. If you think about our like very patriarchal settler-colonial paradigms that exist right now, there is no soul, there is no love and care in this system - its fundamentally extractive and exploitative, so thinking about how emotional frameworks can also benefit system change is what I hope to be studying in a couple years so I’ll be working for the next 2 [or so] years and then going back to get a PhD, and after that I want to be a professor.
What are your top 3 must-read books?
Probably Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, that's a good one, Sacred Instructions by Sherri Mitchel, that one's a good one, and then Women Who Run With The Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, that is my personal equivalent of a bible.
Nadine is an outstanding young woman, who has achieved so much. Nadine serves as the Youth Representative to the United Nations for CLAN, alongside her vast array of other work, as the Non-Indigenous Youth Representative for IndigenousNCDs, the Director on the Global NGO Executive Committee, Chair of the Youth & Intergenerational Subcommittee of this. She was deeply involved in the Global Youth Climate Action Declaration, and is currently working on a film based on climate change from the perspective of the younger generation. Nadine is also building up her sustainable consulting business, Conscious Consulting. This has all stemmed from Nadine’s study at LeHigh University, with her undergraduate study in Public Health, and her completion of a Masters of Environmental Policy as of 2020. It was an honour to talk with Nadine about her work, and deep passion for and involvement in the environmental sustainability discourse, specifically her advocacy for vital Indigenous involvement. Nadine is a motivated and motivational individual.
CLAN's Youth Advisors Grace and Sienna were fortunate to meet up with Nadine to learn more about her story. Heres how our interview went:
What motivates you to work hard, and to do what you do?
A really deep love for the planet, for humanity and, yeah, it’s rooted a lot in compassion and wanting to become a good ancestor. So, doing whatever that entails in this lifetime, and for me, a lot of how that involves is thinking about systems change as an act of love and reimagination, so instead of trying to pick apart what's there and what’s very very evidently broken, looking it at the perspective from, “how can we come together regardless of where we’re at on the political spectrum and really reimagine the world from the ground up and create systems and structures and policies that help to best support that?”.
What inspired you to start working with CLAN?
So, that was like 6 years ago which is crazy to think about, it's been a really really beautiful journey with CLAN. You know, my undergraduate institution Lehigh, had a partnership with the UN, they had been working with the clan for a number of years, and when I saw the ad pop up - “CLAN is looking for a youth rep” - I was really drawn to the work of CLAN because it’s not done in a way that's technocratic, it’s not done in a way that’s like “we know what's best for you people and community, here’s the solution that we’re going to provide for you, you’re going to accept it blah blah blah”, no, it’s like “lets send you the voices of children and family, lets meet them where they’re at in terms of what their needs might be” and so that I was really drawn to. Of course I did my undergrad in public health, so the focus of health [was very important]. I myself live in a household with a bunch of chronic illnesses - my mum is a T1D - so growing up with that in mind, it was always very very central. So the opportunity to work on behalf of CLAN and, you know, raise the voice of CLAN and share the work at the UN, it really was just a lovely lovely opportunity. Through the years also the shift on focusing heavily on indigenous communities, and that work has been really one of my favourite parts as well.
What was your role with CLAN?
With CLAN, I've been the NGO youth representative, so basically what that means is you hold a badge and you have UN-access to the premises of the UN, and what you choose to do with that is entirely up to you. So, for me, I saw it as an opportunity to engage with as many people as possible and hear as many stories and share the stories of what was happening on the ground with CLAN. That took me to all sorts of places from the UN in New York to the UN in Geneva where I ended up serving as a youth rep there somehow - first youth rep to serve abroad in both Geneva and New York, so that was a really cool opportunity. Attended the 71st world health assembly, about pandemic preparedness - that's really weird in retrospect. Yeah, just the ability to attend so many different conferences and meetings and to really interface with the world of public health as it exists in the international sphere was really fascinating and I think one of my absolute favourite memories of being a youth rep with clan is actually when we brought Caitlyn, Barry and Zac - three indigenous people, two from Canada and 1 from the US - and we brought them to the UN, to the 3rd high level meeting on NCDs which was basically the preliminary hearing of that. Being able to witness the indigenous perspective as it was woven into the conference was really awesome and to see that representation come to fruition whereas otherwise there were not other Indigenous people in the room (to our eyes). Being part of those experiences and being able to share the awesome work that CLAN is doing, you know, at the end of the day I'm the person that just gets to go and be in the room at UN but its really the people on the ground - Kate of course - who are doing the most critical and important work. Just grateful to be a part of it.
What notable experiences did you have CLAN that impacted your worldview or perspective, or inspired you? In what ways were you impacted?
I mean I think that (Indigenous people going to UN) that was really, back in those years was some of my first encounters with understanding Indigenous philosophy and the interrelatedness between the wellbeing of the fabric of community, the wellbeing of ecosystem and the wellbeing of self and how all of those things interconnect. I think in my work with CLAN, of course in the US you don't have much exposure to the stories of actual Indigenous people other than the really worked way they present it to you in history classes, so you have to discover that for yourself. I think that in working with CLAN I got a lot more exposure to that than a lot of my colleagues in the US, and I think that's also a testament to how Australia is much farther along - still not perfect - in that regard. That was a really powerful eye opening [experience]. I got to attend the kickoff for Indigenous NCDs in Geneva during the World Health Assembly and to be in that space they just had so created a sacred space at what otherwise was a conference, that moved me in a big way. Outside of my work with CLAN, this past year, in lockdown basically, I’ve had the chance to interface a lot with Indigenous colleagues and I'm just so continuously humbled and blown away by their way of being in the world, and it’s really inspired me in my own reflections. And so, I actually from January to June did this like 6 month inner development process journey thing through purpose guides institute and it culminated in sort of a pancultural adaptation of an Indigenous ceremony. So to be able to connect with those practices, of course in a pancultural Westernised sort of way, it reminded me a lot of what it is to be fundamentally human and has so grounded itself at the core of where I am hoping to direct my energy to direct my career going forward. So it’s been powerful all around and coming back into that perspective of needing to live in the right relationship and reciprocity with mother earth and with each other that's been really huge.
What was the most rewarding thing about working with CLAN, and how have you carried that with you? Were there any key lessons you drew from this?
CLAN really gave me the jumpstart in my career - so there’s two directions that really goes in - the more personal direction which like for me CLAN did give me the jumpstart in my career which has absolutely been a huge huge door opener and its through my work with CLAN that I've come to understand a lot of the importance of a holistic approach to any kind of change and you know seeing how the right to health is tied in with so many other areas of wellbeing and just really getting to see that the community is at the fundamental centre of positive change and impact just has been really key. It’s hard to pinpoint one specific moment because it has all felt so impactful. It has opened so many doors for me both as a human and as a professional and for that I am forever grateful. Just the opportunity to be in a place like the United Nations and share stories of the young people on the ground that CLAN had been working with and to try and make connections and partnerships wherever possible has been huge. I personally hope to be able to give back to CLAN more and more as the years go on and yeah it's a continuation of my favourite moments.
What do you think you’d be doing, or how do you think your outlook would be different had you not worked with CLAN?
I think it would be a lot less grounded in real life experience and a lot more theoretical. My undergrad was Public Health and Political Science with a sustainable development focus and then my Masters was Environmental Policy. CLAN gave me this really unique framework for approaching any kind of change and I really think that it has laid such a strong foundation on which to build everything else so it comes in at the most fundamental of levels for me, so I think it would be profoundly different. Particularly thinking of the work with Indigenous people, and the of course I owe an enormous amount to my Indigenous colleagues and keepers of Indigenous knowledge for helping me to reconnect both within myself with the ancestors of the land here, and with also seeking out my own culture’s Indigenous traditions and trying to remember that we all in some point of our lineages had a time where we were living in right relationship with ourselves and with the land and with each other, and so CLAN comes in at the foundation and sets really good roots to build everything else from. Well, I’m not Native American by any stretch of the imagination, you know my Dad's side were English colonists but even that goes back to celtic routes. On my Mum's side my mum came to the country as a refugee - totally different background. There’s always those core aspects of the self that are Indigenous (for a lack of a better term) that are grounded in that right relationship and reciprocity with the earth, and then with each other. So helping ourselves to remember that and find our anchor again.
How has COVID impacted the area where you live?
So COVID has had.. Well of course not an equitable impact across the board - urban areas were definitely disproportionately impacted by covid, particularly areas that have a lot of high exposure to environmental health inequities, like pre existing challenges so you're seeing those areas the hardest. I never got COVID through the entire thing so that is a direct function of privilege, so keeping that in mind and remembering that it is a privilege to be able to work from home and to isolate, and to be able to get everything you need and bring it back to your safe little home base. Yeah, COVID is ripping and tearing through the US right now, our local hospital the beds are full with Delta patients, so it's an interesting, very interesting time to be alive, surely going to be weird to tell our grandchildren about what's happening.
Has your work with CLAN impacted the way you think about COVID or your actions relating to the pandemic?
I think it comes back to that community centre[d approach] and not thinking about things in terms of ‘this is what you have to do’ but like ‘what do you need in this time in this moment’ - what resources are available to people, what resources aren’t, what does power look like in any given setting, like who has power, who doesn't, and just like having a child-centric focus too is huge. Because [with] any good policy making, any good public health response, if you centre the wellbeing of children you are inherently going to have everything else fall into place in a good way. So yeah, CLAN again is definitely, again really foundational in the way it's impacted me and how I think about this stuff. I think also a compassion[ate] lens because I know a lot of people are talking about like ‘anti-vaxxers this anti vaxers that’ but its like at the core things you have to be able to listen to people and understand why is it feeling the way you are about this and how can we have a discussion to be able to meet in the middle. That and also just thinking about equitable distribution of vaccines and also what constitutes good public health guidance like because seeing how COVID was handled, honestly as someone who studied public health, I’m a bit disappointed at how they went about it, because there was no utter centring of how do you care for yourself in general, and no utter - nobody was coming on the air and being like here go get a vaccine and here are things you can do to support your immune system like B3, zinc - there was no emphasis on that. So thinking about the systemic problems related to why something like COVID is as much of a problem as it is, and also just putting on hypercritical goggles and seeing some really clear gaps in our system have been especially clear.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
I am building up my consulting business so I definitely see that continuing to develop but I do want to go back and get my PhD, so probably studying for a doctorate and to bounce off what you were saying about mental health and emotional wellbeing, that's actually a major focus of what I want to do my PHD on - looking at how you can weave in emotional wellness and wholeness into policy making and into systems change. If you think about our like very patriarchal settler-colonial paradigms that exist right now, there is no soul, there is no love and care in this system - its fundamentally extractive and exploitative, so thinking about how emotional frameworks can also benefit system change is what I hope to be studying in a couple years so I’ll be working for the next 2 [or so] years and then going back to get a PhD, and after that I want to be a professor.
What are your top 3 must-read books?
Probably Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, that's a good one, Sacred Instructions by Sherri Mitchel, that one's a good one, and then Women Who Run With The Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, that is my personal equivalent of a bible.
