Humble Benti To The Sadh Sangat.

[Sikh_Awareness_Society]

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

Dear Sadh Sangat Jee,

This is a heartfelt benti to the beloved Guru Roop Sangat.

Over the last 10 years SAS has travelled up and down the breath of the UK, delivering seminars, workshops, working with young people and families.

You,the Sangat, have showered us with indescribable love and support. You have kindly invited us to Gurdwaras Sahibs, and to your homes.

We have sat together and talked through personal problems, shared your most distressing moments together, prayed together, cried together and laughed together.

You have trusted us with your most intimate and personal problems and in return, we have tried to use our experience and expertise to work to resolutions.

The SAS team are made up of volunteers, but as the cases and number of calls increase we are now finding it very difficult to reach all families. We are grateful to young volunteers who travel back and forth using their own time and money, but it is very difficult for us to continue like this under the increasing demand of the work.

We did not really want to go down this route, but we’re at a point where we need the Sangat to let us know how we should continue.

A typical grooming case, for example in Leeds, may require us to see the family and the victim at least a dozen times. That’s 100 man hours and typically £500 in fuel costs. This is now impossible to maintain by our volunteers with the number of cases we are receiving.

We are looking to have 2 people employed. This in turn will allows us to deliver a much more reliable response service to families, ideally seeing a distressed family within 7 days in majority towns/cities, if not sooner.

Also this allows us to deliver seminars every week, working with young people in universities and colleges to help prevent problems arising in the first place.

Sadh Sangat ji, if you feel the SAS is delivering a valuable service to our community can you please support us by filling out a direct debit form or making a donation.

http://www.sasorg.co.uk/donations/

We truly appreciate your continuous love and support.

[Singh559]

Bump, this is a worthy cause

[Sikh_Awareness_Society]

As we said last nights how, we REALLY didn't want to go down a donation appeal route, as there's so many other worthy Panthic Orgs also requiring funding.

But unfortunately, as volunteers we have been using our own resources - which wasnt a problem when we started.

But as the awareness has increased and the number of calls from various cities has increased it is very difficult to go and see everyone with a problem.

We thank you for your support.

[Only five]

Are you guys registered as an non profit organization?

[MokhamSingh]

Khalsa Ji,

As members of SikhSangat.com, can we volunteer for any kind of seva? With Wahegurus Kirpa, your seva will receive the financial it requires, but can members do any other seva, in conjunction with yourselves?

Waheguru...

[sat]

No Offence veer ji,

Are you not taking on any more volunteers because that's what it sounds like you really need more manpower, there are a lot of good people out there who have life experience as opposed to being social workers etc (who dont always get it right either).

because i know a some people who have volunteered and have had no reply back.

Or is it just purely people with professional careers who you require and financial help.

once again no offence intended best to be upfront and transparent, i am sure you would agree.

Great work you guys are doing, i wish you all the best may Guru ji help you guys.

[Sikh_Awareness_Society]

Are you guys registered as an non profit organization?

not yet jee, so far we have been just been using our own resources.

But as of yesterday, someone has kindly emailed us to register us as a charity. Thank you

[Sikh_Awareness_Society]

No Offence veer ji,

Are you not taking on any more volunteers because that's what it sounds like you really need more manpower, there are a lot of good people out there who have life experience as opposed to being social workers etc (who dont always get it right either).

because i know a some people who have volunteered and have had no reply back.

Or is it just purely people with professional careers who you require and financial help.

once again no offence intended best to be upfront and transparent, i am sure you would agree.

Great work you guys are doing, i wish you all the best may Guru ji help you guys.

Sat jee..

We find it's very difficult to designate cases to new people.

We have a set of principles to work with, we need to know who we are dealing with, how they will handle it, are they able to keep it confidential.

We have had many people who cannot commit, find it hard to deal with the emotional side.

Also as a Sikh Organisation, we try best to balance the Spiritual and Science.. where we have have trained counselors, we also have Gursikhs who advise with Gurbani to recite - for victims and families.

This is very unique, this form of counselling you won't find practiced by official bodies.

So with new people it takes quite a long time to shadow our procedure and if they agree with the model and are able to assist they continue.

Unfortunately many will attend a case, and after hearing things that do not sit well with their principles (non-Sikhi activities), they feel its something they will not revisit, or people they don't want to help.

It is very difficult to detach yourself and be complete non-judgmental and neutral.

Because of all these reasons- we're finding that its literally the same 2 or 3 sets of sevadars who are visiting most the case.

This is what gets really expensive, as we all have families etc.

One day London, next Manchester.. then go back to work in the morning.

What we would like is to have at least 2 people full-time, on the road either deal with cases or running workshops and seminars to prevent the problems,

[Jonny101]

SAS should be supported, this should not even be debated. They are the ones on the road doing all the work. They are the ones with experience and skills to engage the very people who are falling victim to grooming gangs. may Guru Jee bless the people in this organisation.

[Only five]

not yet jee, so far we have been just been using our own resources.

But as of yesterday, someone has kindly emailed us to register us as a charity. Thank you

Yes, please do this as you will be able to hire employees, if needed and please do look into the liability side of everything. I know many more people will be willing to donate once they know you are a registered charity and this means both sides get a tax break which is always a plus. I don't want to sound negative, but you know how it goes when someone tries to do good, there are 100 ready to knock you down. Registering as charity and the sensitive issues your volunteers are dealing with means being familiar with the state laws.

Initially, you will have to pay, but get a good accountant who knows what he is doing when it comes to non profit organizations laws. Accountants are very familiar with the laws and sometimes even more than lawyers, plus you can handle the accounting and law issues in one hit, which means less overhead cost.

It's completely understandable taking on more volunteers can become a liability issue and the wrong volunteer coming in will even destroy the whole organizations reputation in a blink of an eye.

Also make sure the employees you hire are certified, trained, educated etc in the field of counselling.

I think hiring employees will add more structure to the organization that already exist.