Nadine Groenig of SunClan Consulting LLC to be Featured on Close Up Radio

PHOENIX, AZ, UNITED STATES, November 18, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Presently, there are over five hundred federally-recognized Native American tribes in the United States – and twenty-two of them are located in Arizona. As Native Americans have endured hardships for centuries, it unfortunately still holds true to this day. Our guest has made it her mission to benefit the Native American community primarily through the realm of education. This is the story of Nadine Groenig.

Nadine Groenig is the owner and CEO of Sun Clan Consulting LLC (SunClan), where she provides professional development services dedicated to supporting K-12 administrators, counselors, educators, and other staff serving Native American students. A truly unique and one-of-a-kind organization, SunClan also works directly with Native American families and students through various programs and events.

Their mission statement declares the following: “Our mission is to greatly reduce suicide, significantly increase academic achievement, deepen self-esteem and cultural identity, and improve health and wellness among Indigenous students and their communities.”

The challenges that many American Indigenous people endure, of which Nadine seeks to address, go beyond education to include medical, emotional, and the overall quality of life. Even cultural disparities between Indigenous students and educators, especially those who are not Native American, also play a factor. SunClan addresses the needs of its clients with consultants who each have a minimum of twenty years of experience with Indigenous populations and expertise in a variety of disciplines.

SunClan, which currently operates in Arizona, New Mexico, and South Dakota, offers many programs and events, with the main objective of benefiting education and quality of life among Indigenous communities. Programs include the following:

• Understanding Federal Education Funding: Title I-A, II-A, VI-A, and Johnson O’Malley
• Connecting to Native American Students: Building Relationships
• Youth Leadership Training
• The Power of Family Engagement
• Understanding Tribal Sovereignty
• Suicide and Dropout Prevention Strategies
• Historical Trauma & Resiliency
• Mental Health Strategies for Educators and Students

One of SunClan’s signature events is an annual Sparks of Possibility youth conference held every September. Targeting grades seven to twelve, the theme for 2024’s conference was, The Artist in You. Another educational program that Nadine also recently started is to incorporate the Navajo language and culture into the classroom. This program has been funded by the National Indian Education Association’s Achieving Choices in Education grant being implemented and administered by SunClan in schools on the Navajo Nation.

“Education has to be more than just what happens in the classroom,” summarizes Nadine.

In addition to direct efforts to improving the education of Native Americans, she also spearheaded efforts to provide necessities to Indigenous families and communities on reservations. One successful project has been the installation of SOURCE Water hydropanels to provide clean drinking water. Over seventy families from the Navajo Nation have already benefited. In addition, internet connectivity has been provided for seventy-five Navajo families via satellite dishes. Finally, progress has begun for SunClan to provide basic electricity through the installation of solar panels. Currently, Nadine is trying to raise money for this project, as she desires to benefit as many families as possible.

“I want people to understand my passion,” concerns Nadine. “I want people to understand that there is a need that has been overlooked for hundreds of years. There already was an Indigenous population here before we were “discovered.” I also want people to understand the impact that European contact has had on us, that it is akin to the Holocaust in Germany. Whether it has been relocation, broken treaties, or the boarding school era, this has led to where we are now – lowest graduation rates and the highest poverty rates. Although there are a great many Native Americans that have achieved at high levels, the negatives are high, and the positives are low for Native students on and off reservations, and people are not aware of the investment that is needed.”

Nadine’s original plan was to major in Special Education at the University of Arizona. After her first year as a student, she endured major personal trauma, which had affected her academically and, as a result, she dropped out. She had worked a long time before going back to school at Arizona State University majoring in English, graduating Summa Cum Laude in December 2001.

Highlights of Nadine’s career include years of experience specializing in Indian Education and federal programs. She had worked for the Arizona Department of Education for nearly eighteen years as a Project Specialist in Operations, as a Title I Education Program Specialist with over forty school districts, and as Director of Indian Education. While at the Department of Education, she worked serving close to 43,000 Indigenous students in public schools and as department liaison to all twenty-two of Arizona’s tribes. Along the way, she felt that the Department of Education was not doing enough to help these Native American communities. Therefore in 2007, she also founded the non-profit Southwestern Institute for the Education of Native Americans, where she also served as its CEO for nine years. While the non-profit found limited success, in 2020 she founded Sun Clan Consulting LLC.

The origin of the name Sun Clan Consulting refers to the Sun Clan of which Nadine belongs. She is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna, a tribal nation in New Mexico, from the village of Encinal. It is located approximately fifty miles west of Albuquerque.

“Education has always been important in my family,” recalls Nadine. “I just found a different way into it.”

“As for the future, I would like the support to expand,” states Nadine. “Right now, I am the only person running the business. This means that I am the webmaster, the business manager, the scheduler, a trainer, and even the tax person. I need to expand either by volunteers or investors. I would like to earn more revenue to hire some support staff. This would free me up to do a lot more. I would be able to write some grants, acquire more clients and consultants, and to better interface with people to develop more programs and services. While SunClan’s consultants operate primarily in the Southwest, we desire to work nationally and will go anywhere we are needed. I also plan to incorporate a non-profit element, so that I can receive donations for all the community projects that I am planning and, at the same time, provide tax deductions to those that wish to donate funds.”

“I am ultimately hoping to build a strong foundation where someone can take over SunClan when I can no longer do it,” adds Nadine. “I would love to see this go on for generations.”

“Everybody is gifted with something,” inspires Nadine. “There is at least one thing that you are good at. This is what we tell our students. You need to identify what that is for yourself. I found mine with education.”

Close Up Radio will feature Nadine Groenig in an interview with Doug Llewelyn on Wednesday November 20th at 3pm Eastern.

Listen to the show on BlogTalkRadio.

If you have any questions for our guest, please call (347) 996-3389.

For more information, please visit https://www.sunclanconsulting.com/ and Facebook

Lou Ceparano
Close Up Television & Radio
+1 631-850-3314
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