Surrey, a suburb of Metro Vancouver, has seen its fair share of gang violence.  Surrey is also home to the largest population of Sikhs and South Asians in North America.

On September 28th, AWR was booked to be screened for Professional Development Day for approximately 70 teachers.  Despite the bright sunlight through the windows of the library, the teachers were able to extract enough content from the film to be given insight and awareness into this gang violence issue that has shaken Metro Vancouver.  The screening led to an in depth Q&A period lasting nearly 45 minutes.  Questions presented were thought provoking none the less to the audience, I hope the answers and avenues I provided were equally as thought provoking and enough to have the issue discussed in the future.

I wanted to thank Q.E. Secondary School, Q.E. Secondary Teachers & Staff.  A special shout out to Don Cosens, chair of Professional Development, for recruiting the film and working very hard to bring it to his school.

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One of the teachers present on the September 28th screening of my film took it upon herself to initiate conversation with her Punjabi Studies Class.  The interest was evoked, my film was screened for the class on October 8th, and further discussion occurred.  The response was so positive that a student took it upon himself to seek me out.  Contacting me and speaking about the issue for well over an hour, it was apparent the thirst for knowledge was there for this youth and his classmates.  He further took initiative and approved my visit to the Punjabi Studies Class as a guest speaker on October 14th.  The discussion about my life, my work, and an educating Q&A seemed to have kept the youth interested for nearly 2 hours.

This further solidifies my belief, that with a spark, you can engulf the world with the fire of awareness.

Thank you to Q.E. Secondary School once again.  A very special shout out to Rani Kandola, the teacher who further took the initiative to bring my film to the youth, and Shehbaaz Jhalli, the youth, who took the initiative to bring me to the youth.

Thanks everyone,

mani