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| Paca Peace Ranch |
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| Contact: | Bob & Sue Hill |
| Phone: | (719) 783-2877 |
| Web Site: | www.pacapeace.org |
| Email: | Email |
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Fifth grade youth train “their own” alpaca in a year long program of residential weekends and activities.
| Each spring, fourth-grade teachers, parents, and the previous years’ program participants recommend 4th graders in the Wet Mountain Valley who they think would thrive in the program. Of these, we select 14 youth who have high potential to succeed at Paca Peace Ranch and who show strong interest in working with the alpacas. The ten youth in the residential program come to stay at the ranch for a weekend once a month during the following school year. Four additional youth come to participate in the day program one day per month. During the year, Paca Peace kids plan all their own activities, make their own rules, cook their own food, and learn to “run the ranch.” They feed and care for the alpacas, clean the barn, observe their animals’ health, and train their animals.
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| Each youth develops a special relationship with one of the Paca Peace gelding alpacas, a relationship that begins through mutual attraction and choice. Alpacas are shy, intuitive, gentle animals that require their handlers to be calm, focused, and sensitive. It is quite an accomplishment to get close enough to touch them, and these kids go much further in massaging their heads, putting on a halter and lead rope, and eventually leading them through an obstacle course. They cannot do any of these things without developing a trusting relationship with their animal. By the end of the year, the kids in Paca Peace have gained so much independence that they each take a turn supervising the ranch operations. At that point, they earn a Ranch Manager’s Certificate and officially graduate from the program, though they may continue to be active as mentors in future years. |
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| Paca Peace Ranch is the first program of its kind in the country, given its innovative focus on youth working with alpacas to achieve its goals. We have found alpacas to be particularly responsive to children, and we have found that youth connect easily to them. Working with alpacas helps youth develop many of the qualities that we are trying to promote in our program, such as responsibility, empathy, confidence, trust in others, and a calm and peaceful manner. |
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 | Youth bond with a personal alpaca, building a relationship of trust which carries over into relationships with people.
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 | Confidence comes from taking the responsibility for an alpaca, plus a program of learning life skills, bullying prevention, substance abuse prevention, and making healthy choices.
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 | A mentor helps Paca Peace boys learn to lead their alpacas.
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