Fish Interfaith Center, Chapman University
Tuesday, April 12th, 2022
- Salman Alam Khan (Film Maker) – How Filmmaking Inspired My Belief in Oneness
- Pawan Singh Arora (PR Officer) – In the Name of One
- Books on Sikh culture, heritage, and religion available for sale.
- Indian Dinner
Tickets are $15 each. Monies collected will help fund future Sikhlens projects like this.
Salam Alam Khan
Salman is a freelance photographer and documentary filmmaker from Pakistan, who graduated in Media Studies from the University of the Punjab. He has been featured in different national magazines and newspapers and has worked on the Sikh legacy in Pakistan, as well as other international projects with TED and PBS. His passion is to work on cultural and human-interest stories. His film “Going Home” premiered at the Sikhlens Arts and Film Festival. He plans to attend the MFA program in Film Production at Chapman University in the fall of 2022.
Pawan Singh Arora
- Humphrey fellow on International Religious Freedom at American University, Washington DC for 2021-2022.
- IVLP 2021 for Promoting Religious and Heritage Tourism in Pakistan
Pawan Singh Arora is a Public Relations Officer in the Office of the Governor of Punjab, Pakistan. In this capacity, he additionally serves as coordinator for Minority Affairs. Arora has been widely published in Punjab and became the first and only gazetted officer from the Sikh community in the history of Pakistan.
Arora has worked as a creative writer, producing theatre plays, programs for television, and publishing articles in three languages. He is a radio broadcaster with eleven years of experience and a digital creator who has a YouTube channel with millions of hits mostly about religious freedom, diversity celebration, and socio-cultural awareness.
He has been passionately volunteering for the promotion of religious and heritage tourism. In collaboration with the WCLA, he designed the first-ever Yatra-guided tour of the long-forgotten Sikh heritage within the walled city of Lahore. A large number of the non-Sikh local population as well as foreign visitors have availed themselves of his service.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in business communication and commerce, a master’s degree in Communication with a major in public relations and advertising, and an M.Phil. in Gender Studies and Human Rights from the University of the Punjab, Pakistan.
As a Humphrey Fellow, Arora is interested in human rights, the peace process, and international religious freedom. His focus area in this fellowship is the freedom to carry an identity/physical appearance as a basic human right and diversity inclusion through conflict resolution. Pawan is also an IVLP fellow and hopes to expose the community to cultural and religious diversity celebrations through digital preservation for the promotion of tolerance, and acceptance of vulnerable communities. He is currently based in Washington DC.