Annika Olson

Capstone Project

Annika completed her capstone project by partnering with Interfaith Action and the Department of Indian Work. All quotes used below are from Annika's final Capstone presentation.

About Interfaith Action

“I worked with the youth enrichment program, and had the opportunity to be a reading tutor for Interfaith Action’s summer school program.”

Read more about Interfaith Action's work here.

What Annika Did

"I got to see how art is incorporated and how [the kids] expressed their heritage through their art. The kids learned a different element or style of art each week [in the program]."

"One of the really cool things that the program did was it took the kids on different field trips to sacred sites around the Twin Cities for all sorts of different cultures.”

Annika's Experience

"In a big circle every morning, we would start by smudging, which is when all the kids would take up little pieces of sage and ball it up in their hands, then pass it to the teacher and he would combine the pieces into a big ball and then light it on fire. He passed the bowl around, and the kids take the smoke in. The practice is called smudging: it's supposed to purify the air and set your spirit and heart in the right space to learn and just purify your energy."

Takeaways

"A lot of the cultural practices I learned were completely new content to me, which I just thought was so cool, and such a big takeaway from this summer.”