Ensuring Dignity for Sikh Migrants: Support our mission to protect the rights and religious freedom of Sikh detainees.
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Choose Your Dasvandh
“They told me to take off my turban. I know a little English, and I said, ‘It’s my religion.’ But they insisted.” - Sikh Migrant
When Sikh migrants fleeing from countries due to religious persecution arrived in America they did not receive a warm welcome – far from it. From reports of turban confiscation and destruction to deliberate blocking of Sikh migrants’ attempts to pray and otherwise peacefully observe their faith, to a lack of vegetarian food options, the treatment of the Border Patrol agents against Sikh migrants only further added to their trauma of leaving their homes.
As we know, the dastaar is an object of deep religious significance, and those who wear it and other articles of faith like karas and kachere do so as a reflection of their faith and devotion. The confiscation and destruction of a Sikh’s turban are among the gravest offenses imaginable.
Ensuring Dignity for Sikh Migrants
In response, SALDEF is working to hold the Border Patrol accountable, develop appropriate procedures focused on the preservation of religious rights, advocate for policies that strengthen religious freedom, and provide Sikh-specific sensitivity training using proven and effective community engagement strategies to the border patrol agents.
Since 2003, SALDEF has partnered with the U.S. Department of Justice to train over 100,000 members of local, state, and federal government agencies. These training sessions are critical in ensuring Sikhs are treated with dignity and our articles of faith are respected and understood by officers. With your help, we can ensure proper treatment for Sikh detained migrants.
Will you help us stand up for the rights of our brothers and sisters? Help us protect Sikh migrants by donating today.
We are already working on this initiative and to date have already trained over 150 staff and volunteers at Heartland Alliance and we believe with the funds we gather we can triple the number of people who will be trained. We have also provided some amount of resources to the unaccompanied minors already and with the funds gathered will continue to send more resources as the need arises when more and more children are placed at these centers. “We as an organization are deeply grateful to Sharan and SALDEF for creating this resource for the staff working in our programs. Our team supports Sikh youth with every aspect of their daily life while they are in our care- with so much opportunity to provide support and to get to know these youth, we consider all of the information we learned from Sharan to be truly invaluable. The knowledge and insight shared helped us not only better understand Sikh youth and learn how to provide better care for them, but it also gave our team a deeper sense of empathy and appreciation for their individual journeys and where they each came from. We were privileged and honored to hear some personal stories and testimonies from the SALDEF team- they graciously welcomed our questions both before creating this training but also during and after. We are grateful for the hospitality and warmth they showed our team in sharing their culture and stories. Thank you to Sharan and everyone at SALDEF for better equipping us to be a stronger support for the Sikh youth in our care.” - Chelsea Parr - Policy and Training Team “The training did an incredible job presenting historical information and facts about culture and religion, then using that to have honest conversations on how we use this knowledge to better serve the children we work with. Not only did I learn a lot of new information, but I feel that we all left with a better understanding of what our children and their families may need from us, why we may see certain behaviors or patterns, and how we can best support them through their time with us. The facilitator’s ability to meet us where we were at in our knowledge base (which varied significantly from person to person), and answer questions openly and non-judgmentally created a space where we could all truly learn. “ - Maria Kenney, MSW- Community Engagement Coordinator- SAFEty Initiatives
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Updates from Ensuring Dignity for Sikh Migrants’s efforts, posted on a regular basis.
