Growing Hope: Don Venado's Mission for a Tractor

Welcome, dear friend,

Thank you for being here and for taking the time to learn about this important cause. Your presence in this space already means so much!

We are Josta & Diego, and we are raising funds for our teacher, friend, and life's companion, Don Venado—a respected Wixárika mara’akame (shamanic elder) who lives with his community in San Andrés Cohamiata, Mexico.

Diego, who lives in the beautiful town of Tepoztlán, has been supporting Don Venado’s family and community for half his life—learning (firstly from Don Venado's teacher) about the Wixárika traditions, assisting with translations, and caring for Don Venado on his healing journeys abroad. Josta, based in the Netherlands, met both of them in 2021 and has been in connection with them ever since, deeply inspired by their way of life.

"The future is indigenous."

Beyond our personal connection, we strongly believe that now—more than ever—it is essential to support Indigenous communities in continuing to live on their ancestral lands in ways that honor their traditions. Or at the very least, to help ensure they can sustain their way of life as closely as possible to how they have for thousands of years. There is much we, in the "western world" we can learn that will help us transform a planet in need, in order to preserve a habitable Earth for future generations.

By donating to this project, you are helping to fund the purchase of a tractor for the community of mara’akame Don Venado in San Andrés Cohamiata / La Laguna (Tatei-kie) in the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico.

We chose to start a fundraiser here to make your donation to us easy, secure, and efficient. Your gift will make a real difference to the lives of many. Not only those in the localy community that are directly connected but also those that benefit from the prayers and healing from a distance across the Globe. Have a question or need help? Get in touch with us via this page!

What good would a Tractor do?

The Sierra Madre mountain range (in the states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Zacatecas and Durango) is the home of many Wixárika or Huichol (name given by the Spanish invaders) communities. Considerable communities can nowadays also be found in the United States, in the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. They are best known to the larger world as the Huichol, although they refer to themselves as Wixáritari ("the people") in their Huichol language. [source: Wikipedia]

They live remotely and depend on a short rain season to grow their food for the whole year and whole village. Don Venado's community consists of about 250 families and they have about 150/200 hectares of land that they could use for cultivation if they had the right equipment.

Climate change is heavily impacting the length of the rain season and the amount of rain that falls. Maintaining the land by hand means there is little time and that not all the available land can be used for planting sufficient crops for the community. This means that the community partly relies on purchasing food, when they are already having difficulty to make ends meet.

Currently, fields are planted by hand using wooden stakes—an incredibly time-consuming process that makes it difficult to farm enough land before the rains end. Due to climate change, the rainy season is becoming shorter and less predictable, making traditional farming even more challenging. As a result, the community is forced to buy food, despite already struggling to make ends meet.

By providing funds for a tractor, we can help ensure that the community can plant, cultivate, and harvest enough food (corn, beans and squash, a.o.) —sustainably feeding all families while preserving their land and traditions.

How Your Donation Helps:

The funds raised will go directly toward purchasing a suitable tractor for the terrain, which is estimated to cost approximately MX$500,000. Any additional funds (after platform fees) will be used for necessary expenses related to land cultivation, such as maintenance and road improvements.

We have chosen to raise directly in Mexican Pesos, so we will not have to worry about exchange rates and transfer fees.

How You Can Support This Mission:

Donate – Every contribution, big or small, makes a difference.

Share – Spread the word and invite others to join this cause.

Your generosity will not only help this community grow their own food but also ensure that their traditions and way of life continue to thrive.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your kindness and support. ❤️

Go here for the full documentary

that Don Venado made.