ANA@Tatooine Ranch

 “Everybody wants to be happy and to survive. We pray for that all the time. We don’t pray for ourselves. We pray for everybody.”

 

 
This lifetime commitment now brings us to the ancestral land of the Uncompahgre Ute Nation at Tatooine Ranch in Montrose, Colorado where we have created Yamone Heme - a haven for Native women and men of all ages intended to strengthen a generation of at-risk Native Americans. We provide Native people with some of the tools to build traditional life skills so that they may survive, grow and thrive, passing on these gifts to a new generation. 

We provide a living sanctuary from the cultural diseases of the west for Native Americans of all ages, especially from addiction to alcohol and narcotics.  We are one of a few sober-living programs in the U.S. both administered and staffed by Native Americans.

 

Yamone Heme means Coming Home in the original language of the Tongva people of the Los Angeles area

One of our main goals is to restore the land on which we stand. 

We use the strength of indigenous-led cultural traditions – community gatherings, ceremonies, traditional herbs and foods – to heal the soil and water, ourselves and our communities. 

We strive to keep alive all the ways of knowing and growing available that will aid indigenous people and communities toward self-sufficiency. 

 

 We are an intergenerational community, providing assisted living, respite and hospice care for elders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“We noticed that our youth did not understand the necessity of a relationship which grows food. Every generation we lose half of our youth. Each generation is half of the half from the previous generation, so after a few generations they will be all gone. So we have started with community gardens and teaching children. We show a better way."  Duane Mapatis, Hopi

 

 We support cultural and language renewal projects on our land.

   We continue to host cultural exchanges between the original people of the U.S. and all other indigenous peoples of the world, as we have since 1993.