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.

Produced by Melanie Walsh, Melanie Wiens, Melissa Fonseka & William Hernandez

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Produced by Zana El-Youssef, Ali Hardstaff-Gajda, Kari Pedersen, Masha Scheele

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2014 Project by: Melanie Angulo & Janay Foulkes

In 2012 a team of MRU students worked with the children at Sri Ram Ashram to paint a mural of friendship on the blank walls of the ashram’s swimming pool. The project was a huge success. In 2014 two students decided to complete the mural project, again involving the children. Here’s that story. 

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2014 Project by: Maria Alvarez, Cara Bradley, Olivia Grecu, & Heather Ward

Our group began this journey to India with the intention of comparing women in sport at the Ashram with the perceptions of women in sport outside of this supportive social structure. It did not take long for us to realize that although sport does play a major role in the lives of the Ashram children, the focus is not on the sports themselves. Instead these youth strive toward teamwork, skill building, and most importantly FUN!

We decided that the overwhelming power and freedom found in play would become the central theme of our book. Without free-play there is no development of essential social and physical skills for children in general, and the Ashram children are amazing examples of how much difference simply playing can make!

We hope that this book has captured some of the spirit of love and joy which we experienced while visiting these beautiful children in their very special home.

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>>Purchase the book here<<

Created by Donna Smith and Rebecca McElheran

For our project we explored identity and future thinking with some of the adolescents from Sri Ram Ashram using art projects. Working with these young people was delightful and an experience that has had a lasting impact on both of us. We hope you enjoy…

2014 Project by Tanis Brown, Lisa Taylor and Donella Swan

As three students on the cusp of graduation, our journey to India was much more than an adventure abroad. Beginning our journey into the “real world” by entering a completely foreign culture from our own and being pushed completely out of our comfort limits, not only did we learn a lot about ourselves but we found our Khushi – our happiness.

Exploring the idea of happiness and what it means we looked to the children of the Sri Ram Ashram for help. Through photography they shared with us a most precious gift – their idea of happiness.

From this The Khushi Project was born – and to capture this truly amazing experience, we produced a short video and published a book so that we may share the heart-warming words and photos from children who became like our brothers and sisters half way across the world.

2014 Project by: Kate Holowaty, Steven Trottier, Nina Grossman and Krista Ouelette

This is our project titled It’s Our Hearts That Connect Us. We as a group decided to examine the sibling relationships within Sri Ram Ashram. Specifically we wanted to look into how the older siblings take care of the younger siblings. We conducted an art project and interviews during our stay at the Ashram to interact with the children by asking them to draw an older sibling of their choice. We also created a scrapbook highlighting our project and our experience. This slideshow was created to be a visual aid during our presentation.

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