What Is Happening With Our Youth? Please Read

[Guest Pannu Sikh Warrior]

Is anyone else concerned about Sikh youth, especially abroad in Western countries?

what percent of Sikh youth can actually name the 10 gurus, let alone anything else?!!?? Not very high. These kids are CLUELESS!

It seems like parents just take their kids to the gurudwara and they just sit there, listening to language they don't understand, like it's some type of weekly chore they have to do.

Then they come home and get back to their video games, hollywood/bollywood trash, hip hop music, internet chatrooms, facebook etc for the rest of the week. And the stuff they are exposed to during this time has 100 times the influence that two hours at the gurdwara will ever have. And we wonder why so many sikh youth are out of touch with our faith and heritage.

Very few sikh parents actually make an effort themselves to teach about our faith, tell stories, and get the kids interested. They themselves are too busy watching saas-bahu crap on zee tv or the latest bollywood film and such. It is sickening!

We as sikhs, espcially those living abroad, MUST do more or our culture/faith will not survive the western world for long! WAKE UP!

[RebelSingh]

speak english at gurdwara with english parchar ,end of!

[dalsingh101]

It seems like parents just take their kids to the gurudwara and they just sit there, listening to language they don't understand, like it's some type of weekly chore they have to do.<br />

Maybe you should really be asking what the hell is wrong with Sikh adults, who repeatedly demonstrate startling levels of stupidity (unlike any other community I've seen), when it comes to perpetuating their spiritual heritage to their children or wider community?

[JSinghnz]

Is anyone else concerned about Sikh youth, especially abroad in Western countries?

what percent of Sikh youth can actually name the 10 gurus, let alone anything else?!!?? Not very high. These kids are CLUELESS!

It seems like parents just take their kids to the gurudwara and they just sit there, listening to language they don't understand, like it's some type of weekly chore they have to do.

Then they come home and get back to their video games, hollywood/bollywood trash, hip hop music, internet chatrooms, facebook etc for the rest of the week. And the stuff they are exposed to during this time has 100 times the influence that two hours at the gurdwara will ever have. And we wonder why so many sikh youth are out of touch with our faith and heritage.

Very few sikh parents actually make an effort themselves to teach about our faith, tell stories, and get the kids interested. They themselves are too busy watching saas-bahu crap on zee tv or the latest bollywood film and such. It is sickening!

We as sikhs, espcially those living abroad, MUST do more or our culture/faith will not survive the western world for long! WAKE UP!

We are all or should be concerned at the sorry state of affairs amongst our younger generation.

Now we know there is a serious problem, we have to look for solutions. Some highly "intelligent"

people have already found a laughable solution,"speak english at gurdwara with english parchar ,end of! "

The solution is not easy. We all have to give suggestions on how to deal with this problem.

[sanjsingh]

speak english at gurdwara with english parchar ,end of!

That seems so simple but almost never happens, as though the gurdwara committees aren't interested at all.

[RebelSingh]

We are all or should be concerned at the sorry state of affairs amongst our younger generation.

Now we know there is a serious problem, we have to look for solutions. Some highly "intelligent"

people have already found a laughable solution,"speak english at gurdwara with english parchar ,end of! "

The solution is not easy. We all have to give suggestions on how to deal with this problem.

shut up u mug, we have had many discussions on this before, and A LOT of ppl have agreed that english parchar is the way. if that isnt the case, then tell me WHY sarb from 'rajona tv' is so succesful? why is jagraj singh of 'basics of sikhi' so succesful? why is bhai parminder singh of north america so succesful? why is bhai sukha singh (gravesend) an absolute LEGEND with his parchaar? Why is kam singh from sikh channel/sangat tv youth show on sundays the highest viewed show on sikh channel last yr? Why is bhai mohan singh (the most respectable sikh in uk right now), able to get his message across to the public ? The answer 2 all these is because its in ENGLISH, but middle class pappus like u think every1 was born with panjabi dictionary in their mind, will never understand this. Tell me when White/black/eastern european/non-panjabis etc ppl come 2 the gurdwara lookin 4 possible guidance 2 their starvin souls, wat r they supposed 2 do wen nutin is available in the worlds neutral language, english?? then they aks a giani, n he cant speak english then wat? Many ppl, who r not born in sikh families, n others who r born in sikh families. hav transformed from sinners 2 members of the khalsa, coz of the internet, which is in ENGLISH!

look at how muslims cater for EVERYONE!! they have even recently released a quran, written in gurmukhi panjabi.

U and master tara singh r of the same breed, very short sighted of potential, pappu.

[RebelSingh]

Is anyone else concerned about Sikh youth, especially abroad in Western countries?

what percent of Sikh youth can actually name the 10 gurus, let alone anything else?!!?? Not very high. These kids are CLUELESS!

It seems like parents just take their kids to the gurudwara and they just sit there, listening to language they don't understand, like it's some type of weekly chore they have to do.

Then they come home and get back to their video games, hollywood/bollywood trash, hip hop music, internet chatrooms, facebook etc for the rest of the week. And the stuff they are exposed to during this time has 100 times the influence that two hours at the gurdwara will ever have. And we wonder why so many sikh youth are out of touch with our faith and heritage.

Very few sikh parents actually make an effort themselves to teach about our faith, tell stories, and get the kids interested. They themselves are too busy watching saas-bahu crap on zee tv or the latest bollywood film and such. It is sickening!

We as sikhs, espcially those living abroad, MUST do more or our culture/faith will not survive the western world for long! WAKE UP!

bro chek dis video out, i think its a wicked idea, havin a random langar, where it teaches non-sikhs about wat langar is, this is literally takin r religion out for others. all the sevadaars r english speakin youth, leaflets n boards r all in english. look at how many non-sikhs r there, who have learnt bowt sikhi, u never kno wat this event may have done for some1s potential 2 become a better human, or even become a sikh, who knows. Sikh parchaar needs 2 revolutionise itself, these guys have done wicked with this.

[JSinghnz]

shut up u mug, we have had many discussions on this before, and A LOT of ppl have agreed that english parchar is the way. if that isnt the case, then tell me WHY sarb from 'rajona tv' is so succesful? why is jagraj singh of 'basics of sikhi' so succesful? why is bhai parminder singh of north america so succesful? why is bhai sukha singh (gravesend) an absolute LEGEND with his parchaar? Why is kam singh from sikh channel/sangat tv youth show on sundays the highest viewed show on sikh channel last yr? Why is bhai mohan singh (the most respectable sikh in uk right now), able to get his message across to the public ? The answer 2 all these is because its in ENGLISH, but middle class pappus like u think every1 was born with panjabi dictionary in their mind, will never understand this. Tell me when White/black/eastern european/non-panjabis etc ppl come 2 the gurdwara lookin 4 possible guidance 2 their starvin souls, wat r they supposed 2 do wen nutin is available in the worlds neutral language, english?? then they aks a giani, n he cant speak english then wat? Many ppl, who r not born in sikh families, n others who r born in sikh families. hav transformed from sinners 2 members of the khalsa, coz of the internet, which is in ENGLISH!

look at how muslims cater for EVERYONE!! they have even recently released a quran, written in gurmukhi panjabi.

U and master tara singh r of the same breed, very short sighted of potential, pappu.

Could not expect a more intelligent answer from someone who who does not have an iota of intelligence

and sense of behaving in a civilized way on a forum. Lallu,perhaps you have lost count of how many times you

have been caught doing this here. And then pleaded and bleated your way back in.

Rarest of the rare specimen like you repeat the same mistakes again and again.

But to understand this, you need something in the upper storey, which you unfortunately lack.

So we all can do nothing but feel sorry for you.

[dalsingh101]

The English language thing is a two way street.

Firstly, we should admit that the traditional way we teach Panjabi often sucks. As an ex teacher I'll say it outright, our people (in Gurdwaray) don't seem to use creativity and modern techniques to teach, we are slow like that. This is all the more surprising as we DO have a lot of modern approaches and tools available to us today (software/Internet based for instance) that wasn't around when I was coming up.

Also, in my experience the quality of teaching was usually quite low. It's like me personally, I only finally completely understood and nailed the differece between certain letters of our alphabet in the last few years often from Youtube videos fron nonSikhs.............. I guess this highlights teh advanatages of having fresh eyes (and fresh enthusiasm) on a subject.

All that being said, we should look at it from the other perspective too. Youngers need to put their hands up and admit to their own laziness in this department. When I used to teach hardly any of the 3rd generation Sikh Panjabis could speak Panjabi fluently, in contrast the majority of Pakistanis could speak either Urdu, Panjabi or even Farsi fluently. It was actually nice when some of them would come up in a lesson and bust a conversation in Panjabi with me, their vocabs used to be surprisingly advanced, as opposed to the mumbling, jumbling 'embarrassed' apnay, many of whom seemed outright ashamed to speak their mother tongue. Most young apnay in the UK would rather spend hours on the Internet or Xbox/Playstation than try and up their Panjabi game. There isn't any excuse for this, and you can go to Canada and see how almost all apnay, younguns and all, are fluent out there.

Final point is about Gurbani. Sure, English translations can be (and have been for me) an access point to the core of the faith. I read English translations for years before I got off my ar5e and finally nailed the written language (something I imagine I will continued to develop until my dying days, or when my mental faculties fail me). But English can NEVER replace the experience of reciting bani in its original form. We lose something in translation, not least the beautiful rhythms and flows of the naad (sounds) of bani.

So whilst more effort definitely needs to be made by our institutes (like Gurdwaras/Panjabi teaching classes), we can't away away from the truth that on an individual level, as Sikhs, we too need to pull our finger out and up our own personal efforts and commitments to learn our language and access our faith in its original form.

[JSinghnz]

The youngsters cannot be blamed for not learning about their religion because of the simple

fact that they there are not given any knowledge by their lazy parents. The parents are solely

responsible for not imparting the basics of Sikhi to their children. How many parents have the

time to teach even Moolmantar or names of our Guru Sahibaans to their children.

Let me give you an example here to prove my point. Every year during the month of Ramadan, our local

radio station broadcasts a special program for muslim children every morning. Can you imagine what time this starts?

It is 3AM in the morning. And children as young as three come on air to recite quran in classic arabic.

How do these young children learn to recite such a difficult language at such a tender age?

It is the hard work and dedication of their parents who spend so much time teaching their children.

Compare this to majority of today's Sikh parents and you understand why our younger generation is

growing up a totally lost generation who know nothing of our greatest religion in the world.

Every Sikh who has love for Sikhi has to do something to change this trend.