The Karma Nirvana Honour Network Helpline currently responds to crisis calls from 9.30am to 9pm seven days a week, but without Government help it will cut its evening and weekend services in 2010 for lack of funding.

Karma Nirvana charity founder Jasvinder Sanghera broke the news to the head of the government’s Forced Marriages Unit Alan Shaw when he visited its Derby headquarters this week.

The charity had previously said it would have to end the service altogether at the end of December but has decided instead to try to eke out the donations from the public for another six months.

Karma Nirvana has been campaigning hard for over a year for Government help but so far its pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

So it has been asking for the public’s support with an online appeal to Prime Minister Gordon Brown. It called for signatures on a petition it launched on the Downing Street E-petition website and since the end of October has gathered more than 1,600 names.

The helpline was set up in April 2008 and has received more than 7,000 calls. The charity says it is a life saver.

It cites the shocking statistic that 33 per cent of all victims who call are below the age of 22 and 11 per cent are under the age of 16.

Jasvinder Sanghera, who is the charity director, and author of the books Shame and Daughters of Shame, which recount ordeals that she and other women have experienced, says that for the past six months the helpline has been totally funded by public donations.

This week Karma Nirvana took the unusual step of writing to police authorities for support – “the police forces we get the most calls from in West Yorkshire, Lancashire, Derby, East Midlands and Birmingham,” said Ms Sanghera.

It has also contacted MPs and the Prime Minister’s Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice.

The Home Affairs Select Committee findings into Domestic Violence, Forced Marriage and Honour Based Violence urged the Government last year to ensure the network was properly resourced but there has been no indication that national support will be provided.

Jasvinder Sanghera said: “I am angry that we are having to fight for a helpline that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the UK and that we are in this situation a year after the resource problem was pointed out to the Government.

“We are based in Derby but we are regarded as a national project. Ninety-five per cent of our calls are UK referrals, including those from the Forced Marriage Unit in the London area!

“We get referrals from the National Domestic Violence helpline, from Victim Support and from Crimestoppers, all of which have support from the public purse – and the fact that we get nothing doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Ms Sanghera said: “When we started we could not have anticipated the number of calls we would receive. The success of the line serves to highlight the tragic plight of some of the UK’s most vulnerable people.”

Peak calling periods are closely linked to school holidays when young people fear they may be flown to India and forced into marriage there. UK education authorities have been told to be alert for unexpected absences of young girls who might be forced into such situations against their will.

Karma Nirvana, which supports men as well as women and girls, says the Government has acknowledged that it has been dealing with the “tip of the iceberg” with regard to forced marriage cases.

The charity says it gives victims who call the chance to speak to a survivor and for many it becomes a lifeline that reduces isolation and risk and brings hope where there was previously despair.

“Other agencies ring us for guidance and direction in an area where we know many lack confidence – and it is vital that every agency gives the right response to the first call, because not to do so can be critical to the victim,” said Jasvinder Sanghera.

The Government has recognised that agencies should be governed by the One Chance Rule – meaning, get the response right first time.

Signatories to the Karma Nirvana petition are urging the Prime Minister to act to help British-born subjects experiencing forced marriage and honour based abuse, many of them desperate young people.

Karma Nirvana’s helpline operates seven days but even now it is sometimes understaffed. “Ideally we would like a couple of people staffing the phones all the time but this is not the case at the moment,” said one of the office team.

Karma Nirvana can be contacted on 0800 5999 247 or by email on kninfo@btconnect.com

The website is at: www.karmanirvana.org.uk

The E-petition web address is http://petitions.number10.gov.uk

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The study focuses on six religious groups – Sikhism, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism.

The researchers at the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University say:

“We are interested in hearing from young people aged between 18 and 25, regardless of gender, sexual orientation (e.g. straight or gay), relationship status (e.g. single or partnered), or sexual practice (e.g. celibate or sexually active). Participants will be asked to fill in a questionnaire on our website.
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We would like to know what you as a religious young person think about issues relevant to you in everyday life – for example, what it is like to live as a religious young person in Britain today, what sorts of religious activities you are involved in. How involved are you with your religious community?
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Does your religious faith impact on your friendship networks? Who are your role models? What influences you most – contemporary media or religious leaders?
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We are also interested to know about young people’s attitudes to contemporary issues such as sex before marriage, and contraception. Is contemporary society too sexually liberal? Or do religions need to accommodate liberal lifestyles?
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Whatever your views, we want to hear from you! So long as you identify with one or more of the religions mentioned above, live in the UK and are aged between 18 and 25, you are eligible to take part. We look forward to hearing from you soon!
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So far, over 200 young people of different faiths have completed the questionnaire. Their voices and opinions have been invaluable and we are most excited by the diversity and similarity in their experiences and beliefs. We really hope you will add to this voice!”

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So visit us now at www.nottingham.ac.uk/sociology/rys where you can complete the questionnaire and find out more about the project and the people involved.

The Religion, Youth and Sexuality’ (RYS) Research Team
Dr. Andrew Yip, Dr. Michael Keenan, and Sarah-Jane Page

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At the time of writing sponsors and collections taken at the start, finish and along the route from Birmingham to London had contributed more than £18,000 – enough to pay a year’s salary for a day play-and-care worker at the Richard House Children’s Hospice in Beckton, East London.

“It is a wonderful effort which we hope will spark greater support among the minority communities living around the hospice in East London and Essex,” said community fundraiser Manjeet Boparai.

She added: “This year we have noticed that pledges of support from the corporate sector, including top companies at Canary Wharf, are not materialising as we had hoped and we will be looking to the communities around the hospice to do their best to help us make up the shortfall.”

The hospice, founded in 2000 and run by 70 full and part-time staff, needs £1.8 million a year to fulfill its mission to provide care and support for children with life limiting and complex healthcare needs between the ages of nought and 19.  It is a colossal fundraising endeavour.

Manjeet Boparai said: “At the moment we have 150 children on our books who will be using Richard House at some time during the year.”

The hospice facilities include eight bedrooms, a one-bedroom flat and a two-bedroom flat for family use, and a day care centre that can accept eight to ten children at a time.

SACA’s 140-mile bike ride was staged over the weekend of July 25-26 and was tackled by exactly 140 riders with a support team of 15 also covering the course. The cyclists included 20 women, a 55 year old, three under-18s accompanied by guardian marshals, and one tandem rider, aged nine, cycling behind a parent.

With funds from this year’s effort, SACA’s annual charity ride will have raised more than £200,000 in 20 years, for a number of different charities.

Each ride is a feat of organisation and minute-by-minute health and safety scrutiny to ensure there are no accidents to mar proceedings.

The 2009 ride started on Saturday July 25th at 9am after a cautionary film on proper health and safety behaviour on the roads and ended at around 6pm in Luton, where well over 100 riders and back-up staff slept overnight in the gurdwara.

Because the Luton temple could not accommodate everybody 30 people peeled off from the main pack ten miles earlier to sleep at the Bedford gurdwara and a small number of participants stayed with friends or relatives in the Luton area.

Back-up this year featured a dedicated St John Ambulance crew, cycle and motorcycle marshals, mobile refreshment vans, cycle mechanics and command and transport vehicles.

The ride concluded in Southall, west London, after a parade along The Broadway from Hayes – where the public were invited to fill collection buckets – to Southall Park where entertainment and a picnic were provided.

East London representative of SACA, Arvinder Singh, said: “Our website www.charitybikeride.com proposes that we are all one and that was the spirit of a wonderful event. There were people from all parts of life involved, Sikhs, Christians, Hindus – no bar at all. We had Chinese people and people from the black community and even a Korean mechanic! There were people from all denominations working together.”

Richard House Hospice came into existence through the determination of a remarkable woman, Anthea Hare, who as a teenager in the West Midlands saw her brother Richard, a young adult, die from profound and multiple disabilities. He was treated by a West Midlands hospital and she and her parents discovered there was no hospice available for youngsters in his situation.

Anthea became a sick children’s nurse and when she moved to East London she carried with her the dream of creating a children’s hospice that combined the different kinds of care offered by hospital and home.

Many years later she decided to turn her vision into reality and cashed in a pension to pay for research into the need for a children’s hospice in the locality.

She began to promote the idea with colleagues around 1985 and in the next few years a charity was registered and an appeal for capital funding started. The land was acquired in 1997 and the main building work completed in 2001. A home care service was launched in 2000, followed by a day care centre and then in December 2002 the residential facilities.

Anthea Hare is now the hospice life president.

There will always be a need for hundreds of thousands of pounds of community fundraising support at Richard House. A day care session costs around £462 to fund, for example.

Manjeet Boparai believes that not all the ethnic communities living and working in the areas served by the hospice are fully aware of the service it provides for children, without regard to their background.

“Many people come to help, either with our fundraising or by having events of their own – like the Sikh Arts & Cultural Association – but we still have a job to do in telling the communities about our work and in encouraging them to help us out a little bit more,” she said.

To find out more about the work of the Richard House hospice and how you might help visit the charity’s website at www.richardhouse.org.uk

For more on SACA’s Birmingham to London bike ride, with pictures and a list of sponsors, visit www.charitybikeride.com

Sikhcess™ is a worldwide community service based organisation dedicated to creating positive change by bridging cultural, socioeconomic, and religious divides. Sikhcess takes an active approach to public service by creating volunteer opportunities with the goal of enhancing quality of life for all humankind.

Our work is based on the basic Sikh principles of sharing, inclusiveness, community, and public service. With thousands of volunteers across the globe, Sikhcess connects people of all ages who share a common desire to help make a difference.

The outcome is breathtaking.

Our powerful network creates a fun and flexible environment, where people from all walks of life come together to share ideas and dreams, inspire each other, and at the same time, implement community service projects with great success.

History

Launched in January 2007, the Sikhcess ‘Feed the Homeless’ campaign initially aimed to deliver 15,000 food packages to Vancouver’s homeless population within 12 months. The entire Sikh community rallied behind the program in Vancouver, and within only 9 short months, more than 20,000 packages had been delivered to the streets of the city. The Sikhcess ‘Feed the Homeless’ campaign has already delivered more than 120,000 food packages throughout the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia, and Australia. Through the enthusiasm of its volunteers, Sikhcess is now looking to offer more programs through its upcoming expansion.

Sikhcess Needs Your Support

Sikhcess takes an active approach to community-service. We count on the skills, energy, and compassionate spirit of our volunteers to help us carry out our work. Your support is vital to our cause, and each volunteer effort, whether great or small, makes a difference.

Useful Contact Details for Sikhcess

World Headquarters

Seva is, for a sikh, an important ideal. Although the word Seva means ‘to serve,’ it has a deeper meaning in that the service offered is a form of worship and no worship is conceivable without Seva.

Voluntary Seva is a personal commitment, and seeks neither monetary reward, nor a shortcut to spiritual salvaiton. The Sikh Guru’s gave another more powerful purpose underlying the idea of Seva. In traditional indian society work involving capital labour was considered low and for the humblest caste. By sanctifying it as an honourable religious practice, Sikh gurus established the dignity of labour. By understanding the Guru’s message a Sikh serves selflessly, and becomes aware of his very soul and the ultimate truth within and he sees the same spirit within all existence. Through selfless seva he becomes ego less, and his consciousness merges in union with God, thus becoming Universal.

SikhAid Aims to:

• serve suffering humanity by providing and co-ordinating humanitarian assistance by offering aid and assistance to victims of disaster
• strive to assist in any possible way to combat poverty
• support and uphold human dignity and freedom
• promote the Sikh fundamental principle through education, material and financial support

SikhAid International in Action:

• Humanitarian Aid Projects in remote part of Africa and India
• Youth/children projects in conjunction with schools and local authoritie
• Joint Projects with voluntary and other charitable organisations
• Seminars and workshops for young people and members of the public
• SikhAid is currently being set up in the USA, Canada, India & East Africa

Support: SikhAid International

Since its inception in Waltham Forest in the year 1992, to its expansion to Redbridge in 2004, SCCP has continued to fill in a huge gap in the local community support service provision for the South Asian women and elderly by running a well-staffed and well-coordinated project with offices that offer guidance and support every day of the week besides providing a whole spectrum of weekly activities and stimulating, culturally-specific programmes that run the whole year for this target group.

Another chasm in the mainstream service provision that came to SCCP’s attention circa 2000 was the lack of sports and culturally-specific leisure activities for South Asian Youth. Since 2001, SCCP has researched and fastidiously developed a prolific initiative, The SCCP Youth Project which continues to expand every year and has managed to provide a whole stream of services from sports coaching to volunteering opportunities to Youth Forums, besides providing guidance and training.

Being a project that is concerned with the well-being of the South Asian people, SCCP is fully aware about the rampant health issues that ail this target group like Type-2 Diabetes and coronary heart disease, besides others. Hence, the provision of weekly yoga and other physical activities; monthly health-awareness seminars and numerous other health-centered endeavors like charity walks etc is something that the project will continue, as in the past.

Support SCCP: www.sccp.co.uk