About

About Idle No More Washington


We stand in solidarity with our First Nations brothers and sisters and allies for Treaty Rights, Water and Land Rights, and Environmental Protection of Mother Earth on the sacred land of our ancestors, decolonization and keeping our Native culture going strong! As our elders taught us…”What we do today is not for us, but for our children, and our children’s children.”

Idle No More Washington began in January 2013 when the growing Idle No More movement started in Canada on November 10, 2012. Since then Idle No More WA has organized over 150 nonviolent direct actions such as rallies, marches, teach-ins, workshops, call-in campaigns, online petition campaigns, Native youth creative tactics workshops, Town halls, action camps, presentations, flash mobs, and round dances. Idle No More Washington has collaborated with several local and regional organizations for environmental protection, educational justice, and sovereignty rights of Native Americans and First Nations. Decolonization is a vital part of Idle No More.

About Sweetwater

Sweetwater Nannauck, Director of Idle No More Washington

Sweetwater Nannauck, founder of Idle No More Washington, is an activist who advocates for the protection of the fragile environment of the Northwest Coast, for tribal sovereignty rights, and for the traditional ways of life of Native people. She conducts ‘Decolonizing Our Activism’ workshops in a respectful way that is both healing and empowering.

Since January 2013, Sweetwater has led Idle No More Washington in over 150 events and nonviolent direct actions that address local and global issues. She went to Washington, DC to lobby to protect the Arctic; she was involved in the ‘Shell No’ actions in Seattle and Anchorage when President Obama was there. She helped organize the ‘Paddle to Standing Rock’ in September 2016 and was featured in the annual Seattle Weekly ‘Best of Seattle’ (2015) ‘Best Activism Idea’.