West Coast Sikh Youth Alliance Working on Anti-Bullying Plan
By: Larissa Cahute, Vancouver Desi
VANCOUVER, BC (November 1, 2013)—Every summer at Mission’s West Coast
Sikh Youth Alliance Summer Camp, bullying is top of mind.
“It’s an ongoing concern that comes up when we engage with youth in camp,” said
Sukhvinder Kaur Vinning, executive director of the World Sikh Organization (WSO)
of Canada.
According to Vinning, the WSO is “actively working” on anti-bullying initiatives, but
she couldn’t say much as plans are still in progress.
However, she could say that of hundreds of Lower Mainland youth surveyed, about
50 per cent, said they’ve been bullied because of their religion or ethnic
background. “It’s a serious concern … that’s at least half the kids,” she said.
The WSO initiative comes on the heels of a report released by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Sikh Coalition in New York, which found that of 163 Asian-American students surveyed, 50 per cent reported incidents of harassment.
California artist Mandeep Sethi, now 25, was involved in the study and said he too
was harassed growing up, so he’s channelled those experiences into something positive with a campaign called Word to Your Motherland – which began touring
Surrey schools on Monday.
“(We’re) focused on using poetry, using art … to provide a platform for self-expression,” Sethi told Vancouver Desi. “We’re trying to approach it in as much
a positive way as possible … (to) create a kind of environment of unity and peace
and love through the arts.”
According to Sundeep Kaur Dhaliwal, the West Coast Sikh Youth Alliance camp coordinator, the problem comes not just from those outside the Sikh culture, but
also from within.
“As soon as a boy starts to get his beard,” Dhaliwal said, “(Sikh kids) are calling him, ‘Giani,’ ‘Baba’” – terms meaning ‘old man.’ “That sort of hits home.”
And once they leave their Khalsa or Punjabi schools, they fear bullying from those outside the culture.
“The 12-and 13-year-old kids … those are the kids that are starting to cut their
unshorn hair because they feel that once they get into Grade 8 they will be bullied even more,” said Dhaliwal.
She said “ignorance” causes bullying, and suggested schools need to add lessons
on Sikh culture and history.
Originally published by www2.canada.com