Homeless Sikhs In London...

[singh135]

Its bonkers why sell your land to come to England just to live like homeless tramp.

I doubt thats why they came to UK. They were obvious fed false info on oppotunities here and are afraid to appear like a failure for returning to india (to nothing since they sold everything to come here, or their family gave their savings to get you here)

[ks55]

Facts are :

1. illegal - drugee- alcholic- or whatever - they need help either with food or deportation.

2. The problem is no one including the sikh channel or any other sikh insitiution will go far enough to help solve the problem.

So what shoud be done- , Gurdwaras have enough funds for marble floors and doing nagar kirtans twice a year but nothing for these folks. No matter which way you look at it - it is a shame as the sikh community has become rich they have also become heartless. If this was 50 years ago when a majority of your forefathers,grandfathers came - they would help each other out till resolved. Now the next generation sitting on warm seats hav time to talk about it on threads but no time to actually help out and resolve this situation. The amount of money the gurdwaras run in the middlesex area they could do it and resovle this with fraction of their income.

The Gurdwaras were built by the previous generations - now the next thing is for them to be transistional in a sense where they are ready and willing to help out the community.

[VanHelsingh]

I don't agree with some of their reasons for coming over. There seems to be this inaccurate impression of how Britain is all "bright lights and streets paved with gold", even when they've been told life is not really like that.

HOWEVER the fact is that they ARE here and as the poster above says, Gurudwaras have a responsibility to help these people. For if our Sikh institutions do not help Sikhs in their time of need then who else will? It can be argued that these people have brought it upon themselves due to not having work lined up, etc., but you would have to be a pretty cold-hearted individual to lecture these guys when they're freezing cold and hungry.

[West London Singh]

I've talked on this forum many times about the heroin addict freshies around this manor but to be fair....a good percentage of these homeless are 'clean' students. They came here on legitimate student visas with legitimate dreams of bettering themselves and their families. Unfortunately, the borderline racist policies of successive governments - New Labour and now the Coalition - have swept the rug from under their feet. With a simple stroke of the pen the government...and especially the UK Border Agency, who are so right wing they make Hitler's gestapo look like a liberal scouting group...withdraw accreditation for the colleges these students paid to attend. Still not satisfied with leaving these students in limbo land the govt limit the hours they can work to a few hours a week. It really is unfair to compare these people to our grandfathers. When our forefathers came you could literally walk out of a job at 11am and get another one by 11.30. You literally walked into jobs. A simple twist of fate....i.e our grandfathers just happen to be born in 1981 rather than 1931....and they too would be living on the streets of west london now.

Now.....I found last nights viewing of Sikh Channel very uncomfortable viewing indeed. Not so much because of the predicament of these young brothers but because of the way Sikh Channel approached it. We get a whole crowd of Singhs....we're told many of them came down from birmingham and Derby especially.....staring at the leg of that poor young fellow. I'm no doctor but to me that poor young fella looked so badly in need of medical attention, the leg looked ready for amputation. Instead of getting him the urgent medical help he needed the answer from the singhs was to thrown bar of 'Tolberone' chocolate and a 4 pack of imperial leather soap bars at him. :ohno:

One by one....the Sikhs that had come down to 'do some good' spent so much time telling the microphone what a "great job Sikh Channel was doing" that none of them had time to think that perhaps the answer might be to set up a de-addiction centre in Southall. Now I'm no authority on the matter...and I've heard Tolberone is a very nice chocolate....but I seriously doubt there is so much shakti in a king size tolborone that it will cancel out the withdrwal symptoms of a heroin addict.

[VanHelsingh]

@ West London Singh - As with most things in our community, the heart is in the right place but the execution is seriously lacking.

Also I've never tried a Toblerone. Might buy one tomorrow lol.

[HSD1]

Toblerone? I thought the customary Sikh greeting gift was a metal tin of Quality Street! The recession has hit us hard.................................

[ks55]

hsd1 - i agree with you 100% when i mentioned our grandfathers i meant in a context of their nature of being friendly and willing to help out the needy at their own cost. This kind of thinking has dissappeared as you just menitoned the sikh channell offered choclates instead gettting that youth attended by medical staff etc.

[HSD1]

Lol, KS55 I was trying to make a joke as this is a serious topic, but getting down about it wont achieve anything.

There is an old Singh who I lived near who told me that in the 60s and 70s he used to work near Heathrow. When his friends mentioned that someone had come over with no family here or connections and barely any money they used to take them to stay in one of their houses, get him a job by asking around and educate the freshie about what was going on with living in the UK. They all used to live in houses without women to cook for them so they cooked for themselves. There was a lot of camaraderie and brotherly spirit back then. Could you imagine that happening today?

The truth is that Gurudwaras and really rich Sikhs are the only ones who can help these guys today. They have the money and connections to help them as life is a lot more complicated than in the 60s/70s. Hell, if all the British Gurudwaras got their massive savings together to form a Sikh 'Bank' (which had its accounts auditted by an impartial external company) they could set these guys up with a mortgage on a small property and give them banking advice in order to help them focus on saving rather than rampant spending which is what most freshies do when they get some money. A Sikh bank could also give mortgages to Sikhs from the uk to move them out of problem areas to places with better free schools and other local infrastructure. This would help to create a stronger community more able to take in freshies. At the moment we are divided and at the mercy of larger groups in UK society. If our grandparents could help each other out and we cant, it says a lot about how far the Sikh community has gone in the wrong direction.

[ks55]

agree 100% hsd1 veer jeeo valid points indeed - the muslim have banks exactly for that reason as you talk about having a sikh bank. And agree there is no heart in the sikhs anymore due to becming so rich - sikhs per capita are the largest owners of property in the uk reported in teh guaridan a couple of years back. But heartless to help as per gurbani "Mayaa dari aat anaa bolaa" - a maya inflicted persone becomes blind and deaf - that is what we have become dude

[S1ngh]

There is an old Singh who I lived near who told me that in the 60s and 70s he used to work near Heathrow. When his friends mentioned that someone had come over with no family here or connections and barely any money they used to take them to stay in one of their houses, get him a job by asking around and educate the freshie about what was going on with living in the UK. They all used to live in houses without women to cook for them so they cooked for themselves. There was a lot of camaraderie and brotherly spirit back then. Could you imagine that happening today?

That's the sikhi spirit !!!