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Tea, samosas, berry crumble, clothes and gloves too… SWAT members load the stuff in a van and reach central London by 5.30pm where a massive queue awaits them. They serve food, distribute other items and wrap up by 8.30pm, to return three days later to feed hundreds who have lined up again. A common concept in Punjab, langars such as this one are succor for life for Britain’s homeless.

Around 25 volunteers from Sikh Welfare and Awareness Team (SWAT) feed the homeless every Thursday and Sunday. “We’re independent from gurdwaras and our volunteers are a mix of Sikhs, Hindus, Christians and we feed 300-450 on Sundays; usually a little less on Thursdays,” says Randeep Lall, who heads the central London team.

Before the langar, they pack different stuff into the van. “We try to take along what we notice was lacking the previous week. We’re taking umbrellas next,” he tells. When it comes to food, they try to make that too interesting for people. “There’s a professional chef who volunteers. He’s previously made berry crumble, vegetarian lasagne and potato pie,” he adds.

However, food is not their only concern. “Volunteers serve food, some monitor the queue, some clean afterwards and some just talk to the needy—make sure they’re okay. Not all are homeless; some are drug addicts and some just come because they are lonely,” he says. The team does not leave until 8:30pm, and the homeless are always grateful. “‘I love you’, ‘You’re angels’ and ‘God bless you’ are what we commonly get to hear after the langar. Sometimes, it’s their first meal in days,” he adds.

Lall says that though SWAT helps in areas such as Southall, central London is a totally different ballgame. “There are 14 gurdwaras in the city and langar is readily available there. But there is problem of homelessness,” he says.

“In Southall, there are several homeless Punjabis, Indians and Pakistanis. In 2009, there were 200 of them and we had launched a huge online campaign to highlight the issue. We went to see our local MP regarding this, but we were told that they were breaking the law and shouldn’t be here in the first place. The problem didn’t exist for him,” Lall says. SWAT decided to take it upon itself to help. “Some of us visit the homeless everyday and make sure they’ve eaten as many don’t feel comfortable going to the gurdwaras. We give them what they need: food, clothes and advise them on where they need to go about drug problems and immigration issues,” he adds. Even though he says that they have helped significantly since 2009, about 30 are still on the streets, usually due to heroin addiction and that is a major concern for them, says Lall.

Amritpal Singh manages the SWAT team in Birmingham, working alongside the gurdwara. “The team feeds the homeless every Saturday and Sunday night. “We usually have 7-20 volunteers and they include 8-year-olds to those above 70 years of age. And they come from a cross-section of society. There are Somalis, Jamaicans and a lot of students from the University Hindu Society,” Singh says. They serve about 200 meals each time.

Preparation is the key to such a big operation. “We meet at 4pm to load foods such as pasta, sabzi and roti and we’re usually ready to leave by 7pm. Volunteers leave from the gurdwara to the city centre in a minibus,” he shares.

Another group promoting organized langar for the homeless is Midland Langar Seva Society that has served over 67,000 meals since 2013 and has teams throughout the country. Parmjit Singh is one of the founders. “In Walsall, roughly 60 volunteers feed the homeless everyday; whether they are out on the streets or at a homeless shelter, we help,” he says. “Though the organization is based on Sikh principles, we’re not exclusively Sikh. We have a large amount of Hindus and Muslims who help and serve alongside us,” he says. The volunteers serve whatever the sangat is able to donate. “Stuff like choley, rice, pasta, tea, biscuits and soda and we also distribute non-food items like blankets,” he adds. What they gain in return is, for them, awe-inspiring: Thanks, tears and hugs. “That unites everyone,” he says.

SWAT teams feeds the homeless in four places and MLSS feeds in nine places

~ Source : TOI

Britain’s Sikh community are tightening their grip over the outcome of the upcoming general election with the Sikh Federation writing to the main candidates in over 100 constituencies urging them to adhere to their recently released election manifesto demanding allocation of a site in central London for a permanent monument to Sikhs who lost their lives in the World War 1.

The politically active Sikh community have also called for a statutory code of practice on items of the Sikh faith in order to prevent discrimination in the workplace and public spaces besides an independent inquiry into the actions of the British government in relation to the Amritsar and Delhi massacres of 1984. Bhai Amrik Singh, the chair of the Sikh Federation said each candidate in the 100 constituencies are being asked to provide a general endorsement of the Sikh manifesto and indicate those items they are prepared to specifically commit to and work on if elected.

Singh said “So far the Labour leadership continue to take the Sikh vote for granted. We will publish a summary of the responses from candidates in the 100 constituencies one month before the general election on May 7. We are also planning meetings with the leadership of the main parties to get their commitment to specific issues that will be shared widely with the 700,000 strong Sikh community. Sikh voters will then look at both the support of the party as well as the individual candidates before casting their vote”.

The candidates include the 50 target constituencies with a strong Sikh presence and 50 additional constituencies where Sikhs may hold the balance of power. The 50 additional constituencies are mainly due to the surge in support for UKIP and the collapse of the Liberal Democrat vote. In the manifesto, Sikhs have also demanded more effective Sikh representation in the Houses of Parliament.

Labour leader Ed Miliband said “I think the Sikh Manifesto 2015-2020 demonstrates the commitment of British Sikhs to be actively involved with the political process and is a great way of empowering the British Sikh community”. Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg said “The British Sikh community’s energy and devotion in campaigning to drive forward our shared values of fairness, compassion and tolerance is a priceless contribution to the modern Britain we live in today”.

Britain is home to 600,000-800,000 strong Sikh community. The Federation is also sending letters to the leaders of each of the main political parties to clarify their positions by March 31, with regards to demands set out “in the Sikh Manifesto so the British Sikh community can be advised on the merits of each of the political parties”.

The community is also very politically active. Around 3 in 4 Sikhs have voted in different elections in the last 4 years. Around 2 in 3 voted in the 2010 general elections.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

~ Source: thelinkpaper.ca

“Since her appointment to the Board in 2010, Inni Kaur has been an active member and integral part of SikhRI’s marketing efforts as well as overseeing initiatives such as the Sikhi booklet project,” remarked the outgoing Chair Inderpreet Singh.

Inni Kaur is Vice-President of Spectrum Communications. She is known as a poet with a passion for bringing Sikhi to life for younger generations. She has published Journey with the Gurus, a children’s book series. She serves on the boards of MBSK Foundation, Nishaan magazine, Sikhchic.com, Sikh Family Center and Interfaith Council of Southern Connecticut.

“I am honored to have been appointed as the SikhRI’s Board chair. I believe SikhRI plays a vital Panthak role in preserving our rich heritage and inspiring future generations through education. I look forward to building upon SikhRI’s successes as we continue to collaborate with Sikh Sangat’s in the homeland and diaspora. I am humbled to follow Inderpreet Singh in the role of chair. Inderpreet has been a strong and inspiring leader and I am delighted that he will continue to be our colleague on the Board,” says Inni Kaur.

Inderpreet Singh is stepping down from his role as Chair due to his personal and work commitments. He will continue to be a member of the Board, and will serve on the Executive Committee. Inderpreet has been a tireless volunteer for almost a decade.

“These are exciting times at SikhRI. In the last six months we have added three new directors at the staff level: Karamjit Kaur, Harpreet Singh and Sarbpreet Singh. Now with a new chair Inni Kaur, we are ready for both strategic and directional guidance to better serve the global Sikh community,” remarked Harinder Singh, co-founder and CEO of SikhRI.

SikhRI’s mission is “to provide educational resources to Sikhs to lead a Guru-inspired life.” And it is focused on helping YOU fall in love with Sikhi!

~ Source: sikhri.org

The portals of the famous Hemkund Sahib Gurdwara located in snow-capped Garhwal Himalayas will be open from June 2015. Hemkunt Sahib, where Guru Gobind Singh meditated before his incarnation as the 10th Sikh guru, is one of the most revered places and attracts lakhs of pilgrims every year.

Braving chilly weather thousands of Sikh pilgrims offer their prayers at the star-shaped Gurdwara situated at a height of 16,000 ft in Chamoli district.

The shrine opens for four months in a year as the area remains snow-bound during the rest of the period.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

Supreme Sikh Gurdwara body Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has purchased screening rights for the super hit animation film ‘Chaar Sahibzade’. SGPC plans to screen the film in every village, city, school and college in Punjab, informed its president Avtar Makkar during an inaugural function at historical Gurdwara Jamani Sahib Bazidpur. He inaugurated a Green Park at the Sikh shrine sanctified by the visit of Guru Gobind Singh.

Talking to media persons, he said, “The film will create awareness among new generation about Sikh religion and sacrifices by the Gurus.”

He said that the :Gurdwara panel is giving special attention towards spreading and development of Sikh religion, eradicating of drugs, female feticide and other social evils, educating the youths, vocational training to women and these projects will continue in future also.

He told further that the SGPC will be announcing its annual budget of about 1000 crore on March 30. He said, the SGPC is running about 120 schools and colleges which include medical, engineering and polytechnic universities, etc. where the students – both boys and girls – are getting the modern facilities besides moral value educations is also imparted to them.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

~ Source: www.sikh24.com

In August 2012, Prabhjot Singh, MD ’11, co- wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times in which he argued that the FBI should keep separate statistics on hate crimes against Sikhs. After months of work by activists and the convening of congressional hearings, the agency complied. “Ultimately the FBI did change its hate crime tracking system,” says Singh, a human rights advocate active in the Sikh community. “And just a few months later I was attacked, so I was one of the first people to enter that system. It became personal very fast.”

It happened one evening when Singh and his brother were taking a post-dinner walk near Central Park in Harlem, where Singh—an internal medicine resident at Mount Sinai and an assistant professor of international and public affairs at Columbia—lives with his wife and toddler son. A group of young men chased them down and surrounded them, assaulting them amid cries of “Osama!” and “Terrorist!” Singh was left with a fractured jaw—and an even greater resolve to combat the sort of hatred, intolerance, and misunderstanding of which he’d become a victim.

Sikhism is the world’s fifth-largest religion, with some 24 million followers worldwide.

About half a million live in the U.S.—and since the September 11 terrorist attacks, they’ve been the target of crimes spurred not only by ethnic hatred but by garden-variety ignorance. Sikhism is an independent mono- theistic religion founded in fifteenth-century India—but the turbans and untrimmed beards they wear as articles of their faith have put them in the crosshairs of people who not only equate Islam with terrorism, but see anyone who looks like them as the enemy. Just four days after 9/11, a Sikh gas station owner was murdered in Arizona by a man who went hunting for Arabs in the name of vengeance.

In the wake of that incident and others, Singh began working with civil rights organizations that promote understanding and aid victims of discrimination.

“Even today,” Singh says, “we still are chased by the ghosts of misinformation in ways that range from benign to quite hurtful, physically and verbally.” The worst attack of its kind happened long after 9/11, when a white supremacist murdered six worshipers at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in 2012. Singh points out that Sikhs also face institutional discrimination: due to their turbans and facial hair, they’re not accepted in either the NYPD or the U.S. military (though, he notes, a few Sikh soldiers have gotten exemptions and served with distinction). And for Singh, like many male Sikhs, air travel remains an ordeal.

“It’s something that I struggle with, although I can’t do anything about it in particular,” he says.

“I’m occasionally treated quite rudely just on the basis of what I look like. My turban is patted down like I’m a terrorist; it’s wanded for bombs every time I go through. If there’s a false positive—which there occasionally is in all systems— I’m questioned extensively. At the end of the day, you’re faced with the fact that you look like somebody suspicious. And if your government tells you that, it’s not surprising that some days, in a violent way, your neighbors tell you that.”

Singh was born in Nairobi to parents that had immigrated to Kenya from India; the family moved to the U.S. (for his father’s postdoc in entomology) when he was ten. He studied biology and history at the University of Rochester before entering the Tri-lnstitutional MD-PhD Program; in addition to his Weill Cornell degree, he holds a doctorate in neuroscience from Rockefeller. It was during grad school that Singh became more observant and was formally initiated into the Sikh faith; the religion is non-proselytizing, has no priestly class, and requires adherents to choose initiation as adults. “Its core tenets are to remember the universal, that we’re part of a greater force that connects us all; to be proactive in your community; and to always give to others,” Singh says.

“It believes that there are many paths to achieving oneness with the universe and emphasizes love, compassion, and justice.” The religion’s principles, he notes, dovetail with those of medicine. “Sikhism emphasizes working in one’s community for the betterment of all, regardless of background—and in concrete, practical ways, being a doctor can be a wonderful way to do this,” he says. “At the same time, my faith guides me to reframe the doctor-patient relationship from a hierarchal one to that of achieving a shared goal of bettering health in ways that lead to a more caring society.”

Singh’s activism has been both global and local. Through Columbia’s Earth Institute, he’s director of systems design and chairman of the One Million Community Health Worker Campaign, which is hosted by the African Union.

He’s an advisor to City Health Works, a nonprofit (founded by his wife, a Columbia-educated MBA) that aids Harlem residents coping with chronic disease. In 2012, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation named him one of ten Young Leaders, people under forty who’ve made exceptional contributions to improving the nation’s health. “For the most part, in a professional setting, my beard and my turban have been an asset,” Singh muses. “People remember me. I have the opportunity to make the first move and set the precedent for what type of person I am. I’m basically asked, ‘What’s your deal? Why do you wear that?,’ which I welcome. I think all the questions are opportunities.”

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

~ Source: weill.cornell.edu