The average life expectancy for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe people is only 55 years of age and the median age of their small Tribe in Colorado, Utah and New Mexico is only 26 years. The leading causes of premature death are diabetes, alcoholism, substance abuse, heart disease and suicide. In 2015 the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe held a Native National Partnership retreat with over 40 federal agencies and national partners to find solutions to improve the quality of life and life expectancy for its 2,100 members. Out of that retreat the idea for Tour de Ute – a Journey of Wellness emerged, along with the idea to create hiking and biking trails where members could get healthy on their 600,000 acres of land, as well as connect with their culture, history, native plants, and traditional ways of healing. One of the projects completed this year was the Tour de Ute Fitness Zone project funded by the Colorado Health Foundation. This Tour de Ute film documents how the Tribe engaged Native youth in an Ancestral Lands program in partnership with the National Parks Service and Southwest Conservation Corps to construct the fitness zones and how members are reducing their A1C levels for Type 2 diabetes and getting healthy on their lands.
Funders: Colorado Health Foundation, Conservation Lands Foundation, Southwest Conservation Corps, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Santicola & Company.