Come celebrate Vaisakhi at Chapman University’s Fish Interfaith Center in Orange, CA. This will be Sikhlens’ 5th Annual Celebration in which we use to help educate the students and the non-Sikh community about Sikhism.
Our Vaisakhi program includes:
- Harbir Kaur Bhatia (“A Universal Message of Oneness From Baba Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh“)
- Vishavjit Singh (“Vaisakhi: The Stories That Bind Us from 1469 to 1699 to 2019”)
- Turban Tying
- Indian Dinner (Dinner will be served outside, so please dress accordingly.)
- and more…
Tickets are $15 each. Monies collected will help fund future Sikhlens projects like this.
BUY TICKETS NOW
More About Our Speakers:
Vishavjit Singh is a New York City based cartoonist, writer, performance artist and creator of www.Sikhtoons.com. He got his spark for cartooning in the post 9/11 tragedy when Americans with turbaned and bearded countenance became targets of hate/bias crimes. For the past few years he has been traveling across the US with his Captain America persona armed with turban, beard and humor to tackle fear, anxiety, bigotry and intolerance. He hosts talks & keynotes on diversity, inclusion, vulnerability & story telling in schools, universities and companies. He gave talks at Google, Apple & NASA in 2018. He is the subject of a widely acclaimed short Sikhlens production, ‘Red, White & Beard,’ launched online in 2015. He has been featured in Facebook and AdCouncil campaigns. His message and work has been covered by a number of news outlets, including the New York Times, NPR, BBC, The Atlantic, Huffington Post, The Guardian and Time Magazine.
Harbir Kaur Bhatia comes from a unique and diverse background in tech and community organizing. As a practitioner of the Sikh principles and an entrepreneur, engineer, marketer, strategist, community organizer, activist, and producer & host have made her civic entrepreneur at heart.
The beliefs that “oneness amongst all things – unity in diversity – humanity as one race”, “women’s equality”, and “betterment for all” have been guiding principles of Sikhi in her life. Influencing her decision making and her approach to the world around her, community, the workplace, family and in life overall. Sikhi inspires her to strive for excellence and take part in bettering the world! Especially the strong themes of equality, women rights, service, and caring for our planet have encouraged her career, leadership, and community service, and engaging society.
One of the current areas of her focus are hate crimes and bullying. They have significantly increased in the recent years, more so against Sikhs, Muslims, women, and other minorities. Knowing that 67% of Sikh you face bullying at school, she strongly believes the numbers are significantly higher for all minorities combined. As a child, she recalls the prejudice, racism, and bullying faced by her family after moving to the US, as Sikh immigrants. Along with this, the conflict in belief and practice of women’s equality in society including body image, fitting in, participation, value and even her self-image and purpose in life. Today, she sees much of the same around her, maybe worse. However, the Sikh principles have guided and supported Harbir to be able to analyze and be strong proponent of celebrating diversity, promoting inclusion, supporting opportunity and equity, and women’s empowerment through activism, volunteerism, collaboration between public and private programs, education, media, and more.
She has been spearheading the Sikh awareness campaigns around the SF Bay Area and providing training and talks at schools, City Offices, Law Enforcement organizations, etc. As a part of the Santa Clara Cultural Commission, she launched the Commemorative Months initiative to increase awareness and programming around inclusion and diversity celebration top-down from the City administration and support bottoms-up change.
Harbir is Director of Community Benefit & Innovation at SiliconSage, founder of ooNee Studios: Media & Marketing Services Company, co-founder of the Digital Transformation Practice at Selectiva Systems, founder Joy of SEWA, and co-founder of EkOnkar Bridges. Her education includes a Masters in Engineering and Bachelors of Electrical Engineering.
She believes and strives to be ”a tide that raises all boats”, whether it’s women’s rights, human rights, social or environmental justice. Harbir serves on a variety of boards and organization such as Santa Clara Cultural Commission, Board of SC Chamber of Commerce, Economic Development Committee, The Women’s Forum, SC Library Foundation Board, Joy of SEWA Advisor, TiECon Leadership Team, Rotary, Advisory Board of Women’s March Bay Area, and others. She has received multiple awards for her leadership and service, “The Community Hero Award”, “Women’s Empowerment: Inspiring Achievement Award”, “Distinguished Community Leader”, “Leadership In Business” and more.
Harbir is on the constant quest to create value, make things better and build community! — Sarbat Da Bhalla —‘Betterment for All’
