In 2026, our 20th year, we began envisioning program partnerships around awareness-raising and social stigma reduction in autoimmune conditions like vitiligo (with Dr. Sandeep Laroia); and global eye health as seen through the lens of water especially following disasters (with Dr. Kanwal Singh Matharu and Professor Luke Juran).

Ongoing Programs since 2016

Socialization of our memories is our Collaborative Doing activity aiming for positive community health impacts (perhaps by reducing loneliness or cultivating new friendships or helping achieving both goals and much more at the same time?). A few programs run during Summer in Iowa City are mirrored each Fall in selected schools in Lagos, Nigeria (with the assistance of Professor Azeez Butali).

Our Singing-Memories (see also Healing through Musicality in Parks: Singing Nooks as Social Innovation in Urban Planning) programs were featured in the Humanities Iowa January 2023 Voices from the Prairie Newsletter and at the October 2022 Aspirations Gathering. Simple questions (e.g., What does Music mean to you? What’s your favorite song?) guided our program development whereby we shared songs in different languages and styles and around different objects to cultivate new patterns of conversations across strangers and friends alike. The CARTHA/Iowa Corridor Sangeet community collaborative (founded by Dr. Nitin Karandikar) has hosted over 25 free Bollywood concerts since the first one held on October 31, 2017. In large part, CARTHA’s timely discussions with city managers led to the inclusion of musical elements and a Singing Nook at the Willow Creek Park in Iowa City as it opened in 2020-2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

CARTHA is a program partner to the Annual Harvest Festival organized by IAICA.

Our Food-Memories program was piloted in June 2024, with two CARTHA Fellows. Simple questions (e.g., What is a childhood memory of food that you’d like to share? What is a favorite food or ingredient?) guided our one-hour interviews of 20 collaborators and 10-minute filming of Carthans in Iowa City. These films were then posted on social media and in-person gatherings were held.

CARTHA’s programming series around Musically-Infused, Caregiver-Centric Approaches to Understanding Pain, Palliative Care, Grief, and Coping Skills have evolved since 2016. With palliative care physicians and grief counselors as our advisors, we collaboratively design community dialogues, Glocalizers and Fellowships that are complementary to whatever formal medical and public health infrastructure can (and cannot) do in these realms.

You can read about our Goals for Caregivers, Coping Skills and Intergenerational Resilience Dialogue Series. We post a few examples of our programs below:

September 18, 2018 “Dying-Well Dialogue with Dr. M.R. Rajagopal of Pallium India

May 31, 2025 “Caregivers & Coping Skills” Dialogue: What is Pain? with Dr. Rahul Rastogi

In 2026, CARTHA launched the Nimma Resilience Fellows program based on discussions with grief therapists and counselors to build intergenerational resilience with a renewed focus on self-care, coping skill sets, and collaborative caregiving approaches. Four Nimma Resilience Fellows were designated in 2026.

April 25, 2026 Intergenerational Dialogue Agenda Flyer: Healthy Coping Skills/ Grieving

June 27, 2026 Grieving & Healing Together Workshop with Grief Counselor Chris Klug

Several Visual Arts & Health Collaboration Dialogues were held in August 2026 with artists Dr. Abha Saxena and Dr. Hani Elkadi in celebration of CARTHA’s 20th anniversary.

September 19, 2026: “Mindfulness in the Context of Grieving” and “Caregiver Narratives”–with Chris Klug, Dr. Anu Subramanian, Dr. Abirami Krishna, Judy Leavitt, Cecelia Douglas.