About us

Your program designers & hosts

(Un)retreats™ are expertly programmed and designed by a professor and PhD candidate in experiential leadership (based Canada/New Zealand), an MA from Yale Divinity and a tech founder (based NYC/Dharamshala), a JD/MBA marketing whiz (based Calcutta), and a student travel agency founder (based Delhi/Odisha).

Pictured: Kate, Manish and Siheun foster collaborations between organizers, entrepreneurs and artists at an event they hosted in Dharamshala, March 2024.

Manish

Kate

Pallabi

Siheun

I. Life before (un)retreat™

While in grad school studying religion, Siheun started Rally, an internet company around bus travel. Yale University, as an early investor, wrote the first $100,000 check to launch the startup.

The startup was inspired by this basic tenet: like-minded people want to travel together. One of the most profound moments of Siheun’s life was the Women’s March on Washington, during which her company transported over 40,000 people on a single day.

Now over a decade old, the startup’s technology and service is live in the US, Germany, Brazil and most recently, India. It grew to over 150 employees and has served millions of riders. Since 2023, Siheun left her day-to-day role and serves on the Board of Directors.

II. India: fertile land for growth

After the pandemic, Siheun traveled to Delhi to work closer with the growing team in India. But fate had different plans and she relocated to Dharamshala in May 2023, where she fell in love with a beautiful Himalayan landscape and community of like-minded people from all over the world, many influenced by the Dalai Lama.

Here was home, and a newfound calling to apply her background in religion, community building, travel, technology, and marketing to continue building on her passions: to help people forge new journeys together (spiritually &/or literally) and to create equitable opportunities.

In Spring 2023, Siheun opened a new space in the heart of McLeod, providing homestays and a venue for local arts.

III. How Siheun & Kate met

In February 2024, Siheun and Kate met at a Tibetan children’s theatrical presentation about how their families became refugees. Beyond their common interests in supporting local causes and community arts, Siheun and Kate realized they had many parallels... including the same birthday!

Kate, a visiting professor from Canada, had just finished two semesters of teaching social entrepreneurship in Chandigarh. Dhasa was her "happy place" ever since she took an Introduction to Buddhism course at Tushita as a teenager.

Read more about Kate's doctoral work in embodied leadership and learning.

IV. History yet to be written...

The rest is history to be yet written as Siheun and Kate work together to create and execute cooperative models, serving the needs of pluralistic and global societies. What these two women found in each other was a deep belief in the transformative power of fellowship and community. At (un)retreat™, we believe that these embodied experiences can help us model new types of learning and relating, to ultimately become better stewards of the earth and its inhabitants.

Our vision and ethos

🌲Design and execute conscious stays, retreats and programming.

🌀Build systems and nano-economic models to benefit local people.

🤝Foster friendships and alliances across the globe.

🛠️Create space for sustainable and social entrepreneurs.

🌎Help build a world where people live in harmony with each other and their environment.

🫶🏻Celebrate the relationship between cultures and faiths; and continue and develop those bonds.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse