Hi, my name is Juliana Castaneda Turner and I co-founded Juliana’s Animal Sanctuary (formerly known as Paramatma Animal Sanctuary) in the Andes Mountains of Colombia, where animals get the love and respect they deserve. We are the only no kill and vegan sanctuary in Colombia, and the only shelter in all of South America that protects cows.

We have 1 horse, 1 cow and 1 ox, 2 pigs, 27 dogs, 12 cats, 4 roosters, 4 hens, 1 quail, 2 turtles, and 5 rabbits for a total of 60 animals under our care.

The main goal of our shelter is to teach people to respect all living beings. Paramatma is a Sanskrit word that means, “God within the heart,” and it is our belief that all living beings have a soul and that God is in everyone’s heart.

Many animals today do not get the love and respect they deserve.Our project began in 2009 with a desire to protect one of the most abused animals in the world: cows. In the United States alone around 35 million cows are killed annually for food, while hundreds of thousands of dogs and cats are abandoned by their owners. The animals at our shelter were abandoned or rescued from slaughterhouses and test laboratories.

I manage this project with the help of my co-founder Ekala das and my husband, Paul Rodney Turner.

All of us take care of the needs of the sanctuary, including feeding the animals, cleaning, fixing broken fences, caring for the health and medicine of all the animals, etc. It is incredibly hard work.

Colombia does not have a strong economy and so people here struggle to make ends meet. As a result, we barely receive any donations from inside the country. We, therefore, focus most of our fundraising efforts outside of the country and have registered a US charity that is a 501c3, as well as formed an alliance with A Well-Fed World. However, even with all our fundraising efforts, we still sometimes find ourselves falling short — the costs for simple things are very high in Colombia and we are the only ones in the country with a vegan shelter.

Juliana’s Animal Sanctuary promotes adoption, animal welfare and respect for our animal brothers and sisters. We wish to improve the standard of the farm with the aim of making it self-sustaining. However, it is not easy and so I humbly appeal for your help.

If you love animals; if you believe they are our brothers and sisters; if you believe they deserve love and respect, then please get behind this project and help us!

Your donation, even as little as $20, can maintain one animal for an entire month.

So please sponsor one of our animals today.

Make a difference in the life of someone that really needs it.

Animals depend on us to speak up for them; to show them our love and respect. They are innocent children and they are just as much a member of God’s family as we are.

Any contribution in cash, kind, advocacy or just coming to our farm to volunteer is appreciated.

Thanks for visiting here and we hope to see you soon.

Love,

Juliana