Sikh community sending Valentine’s Day love to women’s shelters

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This article was published 10/02/2024 (928 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Volunteers from the Sikh community in Winnipeg spent their Saturday packing gift bags with Valentine’s Day cards, treats and personal hygiene products meant to be handed out at women’s shelters this week.

The two-dozen volunteers, organized by Sheena Gurm of Sikh Heritage Manitoba and Mahekleen Kaur of the local branch of the World Sikh Organization, gathered in the hall of Valley Gardens Community Centre in the city’s northeast on Saturday afternoon, sorting donated and purchased supplies and packing the bags to give love to women who’ve suffered domestic abuse.

The sixth-annual local event was organized as part of One Billion Rising, a campaign against gender-based violence.

“It’s a way to spread love and joy to people who need it the most,” said Gurm. “In Sikh culture, we have a spirit of generosity, and giving back to the community… that’s one of the things that keeps us going and keeps us motivated.”

Gurm pointed to a United Nations statistic indicating about one-in-three women worldwide will be beaten or sexually assaulted in her lifetime as the motivation for the campaign.

“Those are the people who need love a lot… so Valentine’s Day is the kind of the perfect occasion to do that,” said Gurm, also a kindergarten teacher at Amber Trails Community School.

She said she was pleased that community members came together to gather the supplies and pack the bags on Saturday.

“It’s an opportunity not only for the organization to give back to the community but for people, for locals, to give back to the community,” she said.

The packages included personal hygiene products, such as toothpaste and soap, personal care products like skincare masks and perfume, supplies for mothers like diapers and formula, as well as Valentine’s Day cards made by children, including kids in Gurm’s kindergarten class.

“This year, my kids got to make little, cute Valentine’s Day cards. Initially, they asked — they were kind of worried — they said ‘Oh, we want to take these cards home,’ so I had to talk to them about how this is for a community effort, again that spirit of generosity we try to teach children at school,” said Gurm. “Then they were more than happy.”

“They wrote messages of love for the people these care packages are going to go to.”

Kaur said the group aimed to make about 225 packages, which she and other volunteers will take this week to three women’s shelters in Winnipeg — North Point Douglas Women’s Centre, Willow Place and Villa Rosa — and the women’s shelter in Brandon.

Volunteers and staff at the women’s shelters, said Kaur, have been overjoyed with the effort in the past.

“It is just so heartwarming, it makes you want to keep going every year, because you know that that person is at the very least feeling like someone’s thinking about them, that someone wanted to do this for them,” said Kaur, a university student who plans to become a teacher.

“There’s something sweet about putting it in a package, and writing a card, and it looking like a little present. Everyone loves to receive a little gift… it is just the most heartwarming, cup-filling moment that I think I’ve experienced, ever in my life.”

Kaur said the group hopes to expand the effort in the coming years to donate to women’s shelters in rural communities.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca