Surrey, Canada (October 31, 2013): According to a news reported by Vancouver Desi: [e]very summer at Mission’s West Coast Sikh Youth Alliance Summer Camp, bullying is top of mind.
“It’s an ongoing concern that comes up when we engage with youth in camp,” Sukhvinder Kaur Vinning, executive director of the World Sikh Organization (WSO) of Canada reportedly said.
According to Sukhvinder Kaur Vinning, the WSO is actively working on anti-bullying initiatives. She reportedly informed that of hundreds of Lower Mainland youth surveyed, about 50 per cent said they’ve been bullied because of their religion or ethnic background.
“It’s a serious concern … that’s at least half the kids,” she said.
The WSO initiative comes on the heels of a report released by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Sikh Coalition in New York City, which found that of 163 Asian American students surveyed, 50 per cent reported incidents of harassment.