Indigena's Team
CO-DIRECTOR
Janet MacGillivray
Janet MacGillivray, J.D., LL.M. is an environmental attorney and social change activist whose strategic legal campaigns and multi-platform grassroots storytelling initiatives have given voice to causes and communities directly impacted by global warming and the corporate domination of resources and cultures. Her work with communities impacted by the extractive fossil fuel industries follows environmental work with national and international NGOs, schools, and the US government (USEPA, DOJ). Her passion is amplifying the voices of women and girls, global Indigenous peoples, and Mother Earth.
Her expertise and interests span the interconnected issues of water rights including community water systems, animal rights and threatened species, land sovereignty, global trade, climate refugees, GMOs, integrity of Native seeds, grantmaking and environmental education. She has rooted her campaigns within story-based advocacy at Sundance, SXSW, STREAM and many others. With relationships spanning Indigenous leaderships, NGOs, policy and science experts, and social media and communications outlets, she brings vast resources and partnerships. Janet, of Muscogee (Creek) heritage, is a mother who dedicates her life work to the future of all children. In addition to her legal degrees, Janet is a Certified Jivamukti Yoga Teacher who focuses on trauma healing to women and children via her studies with Bessel Van der Volk, MD and animal rights via her teachers Sharon Gannon and David Life.
Co-DIRECTOR
Brooke Hopkins
Brooke Hopkins has worked at the heart of the Indigenous rights and environmental movement helping to breakdown silos for innovative multi-stakeholder collaboration and partnerships to thrive. As a film producer and photographer, her focus is to bring more resources to communities providing the appropriate tools for them to amplify their own voices to tell their own stories to help preserve the many cultures that are seeking support. She has put her producing skills to work at the directive of First Nations and Indigenous communities throughout the Americas coordinating Indigenous-led gatherings and actions at sacred sites within Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and the US. Her passion is working with Indigenous Spiritual Elders and traditional knowledge keepers creating intergenerational community-led initiatives, with a focus on protecting ceremony and medicines for future generations.
Brooke has facilitated meetings with presidential leaders, carried declarations and community statements to UN headquarters and spends most of her time invited into the depths of far-reaching territories and ancestral lands. In addition, as a strategic consultant and communications strategist, Brooke is continually sharing her passions for visual storytelling and experiential learning.
Community Program Director
Nac'a Arvol Looking Horse
Sukan Wakan Apiya
Nac’a Arvol Looking Horse is the Founder of World Peace & Prayer Day and Honoring Sacred Sites Day. Recognized as the spiritual leader of the Lakota, Dakota, and North Nakota Sioux Nations, he was born on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota, and at twelve years old became the youngest bundle keeper as the 19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle. He has dedicated his life to working for change and fulfilling the sacred prophecy known as “Mending the Sacred Hoop of the Nation”. In carrying out his commitment to religious freedom, sacred site protection and cultural survival and revival, Nac’a Looking Horse lectures at universities, conferences and symposiums around the world and has met with and established relationships with world leaders, including Desmond Tutu, President Barack Obama, and the Dalai Lama. As well as being invited to speak at President Bill Clinton’s 1996 inauguration, Nac’a Looking Horse’s prayers have opened numerous sessions at the United Nations and gatherings throughout the world. His many awards include the 2006 Temple of Understanding Juliet Hollister Award from the UN in which previous recipients include the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, and Queen Noor. Chief Arvol Looking Horse received his doctorate from the University of South Dakota for his extensive understanding of the Ancestral and Traditional Knowledge of his people. And he continues to this day working within communities throughout South Dakota, as an active teacher, mentor, and facilitator of healing generations of oppression and trauma.
Community Program Director
Paula Horne-Mullen
Wodakota Dream
Paula Horne-Mullen is an accomplished traditional Dakota singer and artist. Her musical credits include opening for the Indigo Girls, touring Europe with Keith Secola and other notable Native artists, and composing and producing her own album, the Songs of a Black Hills Woman. She has been involved within the heart of the Indigenous rights movement for over 20 years, organizing the Run to Pipestone, the Thanksgiving Feast and is one of the original graduates of Red Schoolhouse and a subsequent board member. She brought her dedication as a community organizer to World Peace and Prayer Day since 1996 and has been a moving force creating cultural gatherings around the world at sites throughout South Africa, Australia, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Costa Rica, New Zealand and the United States. To this day, Paula continues as an international spokesperson and performer on behalf of World Peace and Prayer Day, environmental conferences, spiritual gatherings, university, schools and youth conferences. She continually meets with Tribal Nation’s Councils and Chairmen to encourage Youth and Elder participation in honoring their local sacred sites. She has led outreach and communications with world-renowned peace leaders. As a mother of 8 children and 3 adopted children and 9 grandchildren, she leads a full and active life. Her passion continues to be working with Youth and teaching them the importance of their participation in creating a better future and environment. She feels by teaching these responsibilities, they will become enlightened by their own contribution in spirituality, self-identity, and self-esteem.
Board
BOARD MEMBER
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Waterkeeper Alliance, President and Senior Attorney
Environmental and treaty law expert + Water rights
Named “Heroes for the Planet” by Time Magazine
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s reputation as a resolute defender of the environment stems from a litany of successful legal actions. Mr. Kennedy was named one of Time magazine’s “Heroes for the Planet” for his success helping Riverkeeper lead the fight to restore the Hudson River. The group’s achievement helped spawn over 270 Waterkeeper organizations across the globe. Mr. Kennedy serves as Senior Attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, Chief Prosecuting Attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper and President of Waterkeeper Alliance. He has worked on environmental issues across the Americas and has assisted several indigenous peoples in Latin America and Canada in successfully negotiating treaties protecting traditional homelands.
Board MembeR
Winona LaDuke
Honor the Earth, Founder and Director
Economist, environmentalist + Tribal land claims + preservation
Sustainable development, renewable energy and food systems
Founder of White Earth Land Recovery Project
Winona LaDuke is an internationally renowned environmental activist and economist, working on issues of sustainable development renewable energy and food systems. She lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, and is a two time vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Party. As Founder and Program Director of Honor the Earth, she works nationally and internationally on issues of climate change, renewable energy, and environmental justice with Indigenous communities.
Board Member
Aaron Mair
Sierra Club, President
Heath geography epidemiological-spatial analyst
Environmental justice
Aaron Mair, is a heath geography epidemiological-spatial analyst with the New York State Department of Health and President of the Sierra Club. Mair's experience includes more than twenty five years of environmental activism throughout the United States.
Board Member
Melinda Kramer
Women’s Earth Alliance, Founder and Director
Sustainable local economies and Indigenous rights
Before founding the Women's Earth's Alliance, Melinda worked with organizations globally pursuing environmental justice, sustainable local economies and indigenous rights. She has worked with communities, networks and movements that she worked alongside around the world from East Africa, China, the Russian Far East and Alaska nurturing emergence of grassroots environmental movements within the Pacific Environment.