Welcome to The Oso Vista Ranch Project

Oso Vista Ranch is a 501 (c) (3) corporation dedicated to preserving and celebrating Navajo culture.

Latest Photos (lightbox will open and you can click through images)

 

Our Name - Oso Vista Ranch-Bear View

Oso, meaning bear in Spanish is the totem chosen for this project. To Native people the bear signifies the courage to speak your truth. Bear have visited the Oso Vista Ranch property, located at 7400 feet elevation, several times on their journey to find food. Oso Vista Ranch also looks north across a pristine valley to the Zuni Mountains, twelve miles away.

 

The particular ridge within view from the ranch is Oso Ridge. Many black and brown bear live in the canyons and caves of these mountains.

 

Listen to Howard Adeky, Navajo Medicine Man talk about his people and the the work being done on the project.
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Building the Ramah Hogan

 

 

 

Support The Ranch

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Approved by the state of New Mexico on September 22, 2006, Oso Vista Ranch’s mission has been greeted by overwhelming support from its Senators, Representatives, Cabinet Secretaries, Cibola County Commissioners, Chapter Officials and Ramah Navajo community members.

 

- Current Operations

Oso Vista Ranch-Bear View

Oso Vista Ranch project offers a variety of culturally competent empowerment programs for the Ramah Navajo community.

Our Tobacco Education Grant Program is centered in the Traditional Navajo Mountain Smoke Ceremony. Oso Vista Ranch has partnered with experienced Navajo medicine man, Howard Adeky, on this project. Howard is a Ramah Navajo community member. Through a collaborative effort between Howard Adeky, Ramah Navajo Behavioral Health Department, Pine Hills Schools, Ramah Dormitory and Oso Vista Ranch, the Ramah Navajo community and Pine Hill School students are learning about the traditional uses for mountain smoke and why “commercial” cigarettes are out of sync with this spiritual connection.

October meeting of the Navajo Nation Behavioral Health Local Collaborative at the
Oso Vista Ranch Hogan

 

Oso Vista Ranch also provides culturally appropriate entrepreneurial and financial literacy programs for the Ramah Navajo Community. The Hogan Building Project provides a culturally relevant venue for community members to learn how to take their talents and create successful sources of income through them. The financial literacy training offered through Oso Vista Ranch Project is a powerful 10 module program created by FDIC and adapted by Oso Vista for this Native community.

This approach exemplifies the best practices outlined by Health Science Center Spiro Manson at the University of Colorado in Denver. Spiro states, “There is now a movement to shift away from conventional counseling and move in the direction of culturally sensitive mental health approaches that integrate American Indian cultural values into treatment to better interface with the Indian patient population.” Spiro states that what matters most for American Indian populations is to increase American Indian Identity and decrease structural poverty. The result, he says, will be a decrease in the probability of alcohol symptoms and drug use.

 

Oso Vista Ranch Project also hosts cultural demonstrations, presentations and events at its cultural center featuring Ramah Navajo community members as highly esteemed cultural consultants.

Oso Vista Ranch Project served a traditional Navajo meal at the meeting lunch break.

 

The members of the Navajo Nation Local Collaborative linger in the sun, enjoying the beautiful
view from the ranch property, after lunch.