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Year 2006 has been a fairly challenging one for the NRI community
in Canada

Richmond, BC, Canada, Jan 15, 2007
Balwant Sanghera

Year 2006 has been a fairly challenging one for the Indo-Canadian community. Three tragic incidents within a couple of weeks placed the whole community under a microscope. These tragedies are regrettable. The response by the community as well as the Indo-Canadian media has been very reassuring and commendable.

Hopefully, we won’t see any more tragedies like these in our community again.

Drugs and youth violence continue to be other concerns for the community. Easy availability of drugs especially around some schools in the Lower Mainland is a matter of grave concern. Some of the more vulnerable youth may find it hard to resist the temptation to make easy money. Once involved, they may find it extremely difficult to get out.

For the past several years, a number of organizations and individuals have been making an earnest effort in combating the scourge of drugs and youth violence in our community. As a result, a lot of initiatives – both at the prevention and intervention levels- have been put into place in order to tackle this issue.

Also, the Indo-Canadian media has been on board full speed. Consequently, a lot of progress is being made on this front. However, a lot more still needs to be done.

With this in mind, it was felt that there is a strong need for a broad community consensus. It was time to build further on the work done by the Sikh Societies Of Lower Mainland. Consequently, a few months ago, its scope was expanded in order to achieve broad community consensus. It is very encouraging to note that in addition to various service providers in our community, Kwantlen University College as well as Langara College have also come on board. This is a major development and a big plus for our community.

Kwantlen University College has offered to spearhead the research on South Asian youth and gang violence.
Langara College has offered to help us with the issues relating to media. It is rather unfortunate that quite often there is more focus on the negative rather than the positive aspects of our community. It is likely that more than 98 percent of our young people are very hard working, productive and outstanding citizens.

However, less than two percent of our misguided and wayward youth seem to get attention. Thus, a very small percentage of individuals, engaged in inappropriate activities, overshadow the wonderful work of so many others in our community. Not only that, there are so many positive attributes of our community that rarely get any recognition.

The Indo-Canadian community is one of the most, if not the most, politically aware and active communities in Canada. The large numbers of elected officials at the municipal, provincial and federal levels speaks for itself.

Indo-Canadians are some of the hardest working, resilient and resourceful people around. Not only that, they are very generous donors as reflected in raising millions of dollars for tsunami and earthquake victims as well as various other worthwhile causes.
In addition to their involvement in the political process, Indo-Canadians have also been excelling in sports, athletics, technology, business ,journalism ,media and education. Some of our young people are blazing new trails almost on a daily basis. These are some of the things that all of us can be rightly proud of.

In view of all of this, let us hope and pray that 2007 will be a better year for our community.

Balwant Sanghera
(Balwant Sanghera is a retired School Psychologist and Community Activist. He heads the Richmond Multicultural Concerns Society and can be reached at; b_sanghera@yahoo.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 
 



Balwant Sanghera

  • Born in India, Balwant Sanghera moved to B.C. in 1966 where he has become a well-respected multicultural advocate, and a bridge builder between communities and generations.
  • After a teaching career, Mr. Sanghera received his Master of Education from UBC and in 1990 became a school psychologist with the Burnaby School District. He developed an educational program for the Maples Adolescent Centre, which serves the province's most difficult adolescents with mental health and behavioural problems. He has mentored and fostered similar programs province wide.