Picking up Steam

Essay competition picking up steam
Kulwinder Herar, The Times
Published: Tuesday, September 01, 2009
The last few weeks I have been getting stopped frequently in the streets or at the shopping malls by parents asking for more information on The Times: Building an Inclusive, Diverse Community.
It's encouraging to see fathers and mothers guiding their children on the responsibilities of building an inclusive community.
Most parents want to see their children become contributing members of society and appreciate that more work needs to be done. In fact, we have just received our second Tasha Hinterbrandner of Mission e-mailed me with her submission. She wrote about diversity and leadership. She explains that strong leadership is required to bring people together in a multicultural society. This year's question is: "What have you done or what can you do to make our community inclusive?"
To enter, you must be of ages 14 to 26 and live in the Abbotsford/Mission area.
Your submission must be less than 300 words and can be e-mailed to me at the address below or dropped off at The Times office on Peardonville Road, in Abbotsford.
On a different note, Indo-Canadian families recently celebrated Rakhri. It's a time when sisters and brothers show their love and respect for each other. You may have noticed guys around town were wearing shining bands on their wrists. This symbolizes the bond between males and females within a family.
This brings up this contradictory statement I heard this week from a lady who approached me in Abbotsford.
"In Indo-Canadian families, males and females are treated differently in the household, meaning boys are spoiled and females aren't."
She later said: "this is why there is a [small minority] of spoiled males in the East Indian community that are troublemakers."
First of all, I am really puzzled of the fact that some people like to just focus on the (small minority) in the East Indian community.
With all due respect it's the (small minority) in every community. Secondly, in most Indo-Canadian families and Sikh families in particular, women and girls are treated equally or in some cases better than men and boys.
There are some traditional families out there who may favour boys over their girls. This is very wrong and goes against the practice of the Sikh faith. But, they are still a small minority compared to the vast majority of families who treat their children equally regardless of gender.
In the Sikh religion everyone is equal regardless of class, caste or gender. The long-standing tradition of Rakhri demonstrates this very aspect of Indo-Canadian culture. Many Indo-Canadian families have been here for two or three generations and others have come more recently. What is hurtful is when people deliberately attack my community (Indo-Canadian) or any community for that matter without knowing the real reasons behind their voice.
- Kulwinder (Ken) Herar writes on community diversity issues for The Abbotsford-Mission Times. The award-winning columnist