Canada: The Sikh Student's Association of UBC, SFU and UFV came up with a unique collaboration, Nihaal, back in 2013. And this year again, they are organizing Nihaal'16.
The event will comprise of skits incorporating comedies and speakers to represent a discourse on rarely discussed issues particularly faced by the Punjabi community. The show will be an interactive one, which will concentrate on topics and raise awareness to it. The points will be made on gender issues, elder respect, and suicide.
They have decided to team up with Sikhi Awareness Foundation (SAF) this year, and the spotlight will be on 'farmer suicide'.
Conceived on 2014, SAF, which is a Canada based non-profit organization work on the lines of selfless service to humanity according to Sikh principles. They help the destitute families in Punjab by aiding them financially in an effort to tone down the alarming rate of depression and suicides among the farmer classes.
They have also provided the children from the marginalized communities with education, helped the community to have provision to safe drinking water by installing water filters and rebuilt houses both in Punjab and Jammu.
The organization which works both in India and Canada has conducted three emergency missions during Jammu and Kashmir floods, the Assam floods, and the Nepal earthquakes. The impressive thing is that they have help to rebuild an entire village consisting of 106 houses, registered over 40 children in educational programs and opened 3 Gurmat Academies.
The official Nihaal trailer for 2016, creating awareness, can be watched here:
The event will be taking place on 13th March at Bell Performing Arts Centre, Newton. (Input from agencies)