By Jennifer Dorozio, Mary Yohannes, Morgan Parker & Amy Tucker 

Dance in India is as common as drawing breath. The children at the ashram dance when they are happy, and they dance when they want to be happy, which means they dance all the time.

By Katherine Huitema & Katarina Jukic 

Sri Ram Ashram was founded by Baba Hari Dass a devout Hindu who wanted to establish a loving, caring home for children who don’t have one. Today, about 25 years later life at the Ashram acknowledges all religions while weaving Hinduism into daily life.

By Maddie Bietz, Anna Junker, Sheri May and Dayna Nielsen 

It is easy to create “a one size fits all” image of India by only being exposed to narratives centered on certain aspects of the culture and country. In this book, we attempt to deconstruct the idea of having a single story by comparing our perceptions of India with those of the children of the Sri Ram Ashram. Our goal was to open up a conversation between Indians and Canadians so that we could tell a fuller story of all that India encompasses.

A Piece of the Puzzle (PDF)

By Child Studies students Jenna Dusynzski, Tera Graves, and Che Burnett

Our team acted as peer mentors for India 2016, and our goal was to work with our India classmates on stress management, and in encouraging ways we could effectively and respectfully to engage with Ashram children. Prior to leaving for India, we offered a workshop on mindfulness combined with tools for handling stress, which was presented by Che Burnett and social work practicum student Cara Bradley. In conjunction, a workshop on the importance and value of play was facilitated by Tera Graves and Jenna Dusynzski. Our video project captures elements of our goals as a peer mentoring team.

By Max Bartnik, Justina Deardoff, Dominika Dabrowska & Ashley Visser 

For our project we created a book filled with portraits of the Ashram children, accompanied by their quotes, collected after asking each child what their favourite thing about Ashram was, and what Ashram means to them.

We were initially motivated by the idea of perception, and understanding the different perceptions we would find in India, and especially at the Ashram. As we interviewed the children we realized that most of the answers shared the theme of love and family. We wanted to highlight this throughout our book and attempt to allow those who have not visited the Ashram a chance to understand the positive and accepting environment found there.

We hope this book captures an aspect of what the Ashram truly is.

Love Without Boundaries (PDF)

>>Purchase book here<<

By Kelci Hilferty, Kiah Lucero & Rebecca Wiltzen

Three Mount Royal University students embarked on a journey of self-growth and discovery through a field school in India for 3 weeks. Kelci, a marketing student, Rebecca, a social work student, and Kiah, a Journalism student, wanted to document their experience in a video that captures their experience in order to document their changes and challenging encounters in the most raw way possible, with nothing held back. They filmed 22 days of learning about themselves, and the Sri Ram Ashram community that they became a part of.

By Kate Darough, Amara Lamb, Mikeltie Pitre & Celina Sinclair 

The mural project has been an important part of each if the India field schools to date including 2012, 2014 and now 2016. And the goal of mural project remains the same: to connect Mount Royal and the Sri Ram Ashram through images of our two countries and cultures.

By Amee Busch & Marleen Dorrestijn

This book is a sneak peak to the lives of the people who work at the Ashram and are responsible for its success as a positive, loving, alternative model of care. We interviewed the cooks, the gatekeeper, a mommy, the manager, the director and the office staff, as we engaged with the ashram children for a week. Inside this book you will find pictures and descriptions of the various job tasks that make Sri Ram Ashram run, along with fun facts about the Ashram’s staff.

Sri Ram Ashram Behind the Scenes (PDF)

>>Purchase the book here<<

By Paige Bentzen, Amanda Taylor & Kacie Tellett

The Sri Ram Ashram is home to about 70 abandoned or orphaned children and our project goal is to provide a sense of how a typical day unfolds for these children in their home in the foothills of the Himalayas just outside the Hindu holy city of Haridwar.

Produced by: Tyler Klinkhammer, Dayla Brown, and Katie Paquin

Ohana is a video project by Tyler Klinkhammer, Dayla Brown, and Katie Paquin. For our project, we decided to look at the family structures of our fellow field schoolers, and of the residents at the Sri Ram Ashram. We did preliminary interviews before the field school, and follow-up interviews after. We then were able to draw a comparison to see how our perceptions of family and of family structures changed during our experience.

Ohanan_India_1687_08b08ecf008ce231cb9a5e1d94bba94e.flv from MRU Journalism on Vimeo.