Empowering Minds · Mental Health Europe

The art of clowning, empowerment, and mental health

·23 min·1 clip

Natalie says Red Noses goes where laughter and hope are lost, including displacement settings in Egypt.

1. Empowering Minds interviews Natalie about Red Noses International, the art of clowning, and connection. 2. Natalie is the CEO of Red Noses International, and she says she started there more than 20 years ago as an intern before becoming CEO. 3. The episode asks what clowning is for in hospitals, displacement settings, and mental health work. 4. Natalie says Red Noses works at the intersection of arts and health, especially arts and mental health. 5. She says the organization sends trained professional artists to places where “laughter and hope is lost.” 6. She describes a recent humanitarian response mission in Egypt with displaced people from Sudan and people affected by the conflict in Gaza. 7. Natalie says the work is not about denying suffering, but about showing that joy can still exist alongside darkness. 8. She says “more than one thing can be true,” including sadness and happiness at the same time. 9. Natalie says the organization chooses to go to places of suffering and hardship rather than avoiding them. 10. She says the goal is to give people a moment of reconnection to their inner emotional world and humanity. 11. Natalie outlines four program areas: healthcare environments, people with disabilities, humanitarian response, and older citizens. 12. She says the people-with-disabilities work is becoming integrated into all Red Noses activities as a broader commitment to inclusion. 13. She says the healthcare program began in hospitals as a “crazy idea” that clowns should work in that environment. 14. Natalie says the organization now focuses on stressful moments such as procedures, children going to surgery, and the point right before anesthesia. 15. She says the older-citizens program uses music from childhood to reduce isolation and support people with dementia and Alzheimer’s. 16. Natalie says the humanitarian response program is the fastest-growing because crises are increasing and funding is needed to keep up. 17. She explains that Red Noses hires paid artists, runs auditions, and requires more than 400 hours of training before certification. 18. Natalie says humanitarian response artists need high social competence because they work in crisis areas for two to four weeks and see strong images. 19. The conversation is direct, practical, and reflective, with Natalie moving from program details to strategy and advocacy. 20. People interested in mental health, arts-based care, and humanitarian response will get the most from it; listeners wanting light entertainment may skip it.

As heard by us

Clowning is treated here as trained care work, not comic relief.

Red Noses International is framed as care work at the point where arts and health meet. Natalie brings that frame into focus through more than 20 years with the organization, moving from intern to CEO, while the work centers trained professional clown artists sent into places…

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Why you'd press play

Clowning as care, from humanitarian response missions to mental health work.

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