Swedish Organisation of Sikh Students

After a few weeks of not going to Gurdwara (due to a part-time job on weekends) I went to Gurdwara today. So much politics. Even in the singing. I decided to make a post about it on the blog. I am a firm believer (as those who know me personally will know) that positive energy should be spread rather than too much negative; I decided not to write about that.

Instead I'm going to write about something else that happened today. Today our youth organisation had the first meeting of the year. The organisation initially started December 2004, when two Penjis and one Paaji, Navleen Kaur, Sharonjeet Kaur and Manvir Singh came to Sweden to hold the first ever youth camp in Sweden! Prior to that, we only had kids camps where we were forced to learn 'Ora aera' (Punjabi alphabets), the names of the Gurus in chronological order, and a lot of other historical figures [which I'm not saying are not important things to learn], by older people who did not manage to get the kids interested into Sikhi. The first camp was a great
success! The youngsters were united and, everyone wanted to get together and do stuff together. This is when Swedish Organisation of Sikh Students was founded.

The following year 2005, went quite well. A few charity related activities (collecting money for Red Cross in relation to the Tsunami and the Pakistan earthquake), a few physical activities, a camp etc. The year was overall quite a success. The camp this time was held by Navleen Kaur Penji and Veer Ravinderpal Singh. Camp was amazing- everyone was boosted - chardikala etc etc. Unfotunatly the Gurdwara people totally ruined it the last day by yelling at the kids for having a camp, and because their political ego wasn't fulfilled.

The year to come, 2006 was a total disaster. No activities, no-one interested in putting down their time into doing stuff. Everything went wrong. No-one bothered to do anything; everyone was busy with their life etc etc.

Then came 2007. We had an annual meeting in the beginning of the year, in order to analyse what was positive in 2006, what went wrong, and what we planned for 2007. Then it struck us: 2006 was a failure. There was nothing positive to write about it. We decided that we would hold more activities in 2007. One activity a month (in 2005 we had so many, that people got tired, and less and less people turned up every time); last Saturday in the month. That was today. We did Gatka today; one of the guys knew his gatka; so he taught the other guys. We had some warm up time in the beginning where we played some ball games (killer ball, spook ball etc)..Followed by the gatka.

The day went quite well. Although I've got an exam on Monday, and had to work till late, I decided to go, since I had made a commitment in the meeting that I would become a part of the committee, since I noticed that a lot of things needed to be changed. Overall it went quite well; most people had fun. We decided that a Camp would be held this year too; so hopefully that should work out. Like Jasbir veerji, Singapore, writes in his blog; "If its to be - its up to me." This veer, almost single-handedly organized a Sikh kids camp in Singapore; which was great! I've made a post about the Bahadur Bachey camp earlier on, which you can take a look at=)

I think in order for things to work out, you need to prioritize stuff. So even your studies and work need to be put behind at times, if you've chosen the role of beign part of the committee. That's something I've noticed some people don't do; even though they themselves choose to become a part of it. I think you need to have visions, goals; and the commitment.

Anyway; hope things work out well this year, and I'll keep the blog updated on what happens with the society.
Oh and photos of some of the things we've previously done can be seen here.

P.s I'm currently working on a post on 'My inspirations'.
It's going to be about a leader who inspires me =)

Now I need to study for Monday's exam!