Month: October 2014

NEW YORK/ TROY, MI (TIP) The Dasvandh Network (DVN) is encouraging donors to give during the second annual Dasvandh Week (November 8th-16th) via online donations (www.dvnetwork.org) or in Gurdwaras throughout the country. This year’s goal of $80,000 will be achieved not only from power of ten-inspired individuals but also with matching funds from strategic donors within the Sikh community for one-time and recurring donations (limits apply).

This makes the week of November 8th-16th the most important opportunity to maximize the reach of your donation. “Dasvandh Week is meant to serve as an annual reminder that we all can and should be giving,” said Manpreet Singh, Treasurer of the Dasvandh Network. “This year, we are calling upon our community to ask themselves, ‘Can I do more?’” Due the generosity of donors through DVN, Khalsa Food Pantry has been able to support nearly 80 families per week with non-perishable goods and produce. “We were able to acquire two refrigerators for food storage which has helped maximize our distribution of produce,” said Natasha Kaur, Khalsa Care Foundation Sevadaar.

“We are humbled and grateful to DVN and to all who have supported us!” DVN is a not-for-profit, grassroots, crowdfunding platform that allows donors and causes to actively participate in the spirit of Dasvandh-the Sikh practice of contributing onetenth of a person’s earnings to the common good of the community. That is why DVN is encouraging donors to give with the power of ten in mind during the week-long fundraising event. Dasvandh Network is self-funded and doesn’t charge administrative fees.

Donations via paper check are sent without any fees to the designated organization/project. To pay 3rd party payment processing providers, there is a 3.5% processing fee for credit/debit card transactions and $0.50 fee for ACH transactions. However, during Dasvandh Week, these processing fees will be waived, so along with the matching funds, 200% of donations will go to causes listed on the platform.

About Dasvandh Network

Dasvandh Network (www.dvnetwork.org) is a 501(c) 3 grassroots online giving platform where donors and organizations can actively participate in the spirit of Dasvandh, or share part of one’s earnings toward the betterment of society. Its mission is to inspire an increase in the level of giving to organizations and charitable projects across North America and to foster the spirit of Dasvandh among Sikhs by providing access and awareness to Sikhirelated causes.

NEW YORK (TIP): The Sikhs For Justice plans to submit a report to UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon on the genocidal violence against the Sikh community, on 7th November, on the 30th anniversary of November 1984 massacre of Sikhs in Delhi and other parts of India.

“The report ‘1984 Sikh Genocide’ will carry details of the preplanned and deliberate killings of the Sikhs in 19 states of India, eyewash investigations by successive governments, zero convictions and the failure of the Supreme Court to take cognizance of thousands of deaths during the first week of November 1984,” announced SFJ. “On November 7, while submitting the report, thousands of Sikhs from North America and European Union will converge at the UN headquarters to highlight the denial of justice and continuous impunity to Indian political leaders involved in the 1984 genocidal violence,” said SFJ legal adviser Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

A ‘Sikh genocide complaint’, urging the UN to investigate the “systematic, intentional and deliberate” killing of Sikhs carried out across India during the first week of November 1984 and to recognize these attacks as genocide, is already pending before the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The complaint, with support of more than million signatures, was filed with UNHRC on November 1, 2013.

If the UN working group on communications decides to hear the Sikh genocide complaint, it is likely to hold hearings in 2015 August to allow the 1984 victims to present evidence related to the genocide. “The victims and the community are going to the international forum after the Indian establishment failed the victims and justice was denied to them,” Pannun said

NEW YORK (TIP): The Nartan Rang Dance Academy of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan organized its 3rd annual Navratri celebration on Saturday, October 11th, 2014 at Mitchel Athletic Complex in Garden City, Long Island. With the melodic musical stylings of Naishad Pandya & his orchestra, nearly 250 people gathered to offer their prayers to Goddess Durga and to mingle and dance to old & new garba/raas tunes and celebrate the nine day joyous festival of Navratri, which turned out to be a special treat that the celebrations coincided with Sharad Poornima.

NEW YORK (TIP): ‘Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation-USA (EVFUSA)’, recently (Oct. 3-5) hosted an international conference in Cincinnati, Ohio to address various issues facing rural education, hygiene, and integrated development in remote parts of India, where it operates. In opening remarks, Shyamji Gupta, founder of ‘Ekal Movement’ set the tone by challenging the gathering to undertake a new initiative for the rural masses.

Inspired by the clarion call for a ‘Swachha-Bharat’ (Clean-India) by P.M. Narendra Modi, Ekal volunteers whole heartedly adopted this campaign to create and implement a strategy to clean the Ekal Villages where 1.5 million children are being nurtured and groomed. The campaign will create awareness and develop sustainable approaches to keep the villages clean. This conference had brought together volunteers, field teams and philanthropists from across US, India and Canada and astoundingly raised Rs. 1 Crore for this purpose. Spearheading the on-the-spot fundraising efforts Himanshu Shah, CEO, Shah Capital, said “poor sanitation and lack of solid waste management has had tremendous negative impact on the health of Indians all over.

It is time we address this issue”. He contributed significant amount of his own monies to the cause and matched donations raised by Ekal.Welcoming this impromptu generosity, Vinod Jhunjhunwala, President of ‘EVFUSA’ said, “while ideas are plenty, India often loses out on implementation. Ekal, with its reach in over 54,000 villages throughout India has wide grass-root network that can effectively implement this cleaning initiative”. Ekal uses education as a primary vehicle to bring holistic development of remote and rural villages.

In addition to education, Ekal is working on health, sanitation, agriculture and development. Ajay Singh, Project Coordinator for EVF-USA, informed the gathering about the state-of-the-art approach adopted by ‘Ekal-India’ to administer and monitor various aspects of ‘Ekal’. He further elaborated that the teacher’s and student’s third-party assessment, automated school allocation as well as their ‘google-mapping’ was already underway. The movement has created so much excitement among youth in the U. S. that several college students are going to Ekal villages to study the movement.

Recently, Rohan & Anjeli Sharma, brother-sister team, both less than 15 year old, spent three weeks in an Ekal Village, learning how Ekal had impacted villager’s lives. The reciprocal volunteerism of the Ekal model has also caught the eye of the Afghanistan community who feel that this unique model could be beneficial to the tribal-rural villages of Afghanistan. A team from Afghanistan headed by Sunil Ishairzay, visited India, last year, with the sole intention of studying and replicating Ekal education model in Afghanistan. Several innovative solutions to a range of issues including the use of technology for education and the micro-rural entrepreneurship were also discussed.

In several villages, solar energy is already being used by the villagers for life’s basic necessities with help from ‘Ekal’. At the conference, Ekal also addressed the national tragedy of the floods affecting the Kashmir valley. Ekal USA has year-marked $150,000 for these flood victims. In short, Ekal Vidyalaya, the largest grass-root movement undertaken by NRIs and Indians is playing a key role in the lives of neglected masses for their self-sustenance and empowerment.

City Councilmembers Jumaane Williams and Steven Levin Call for Action

NEW YORK, NY (TIP): Vowing to continue their campaign to end illegal lockouts and evictions, tenants of threequarter houses spoke out about landlords’ abusive practices on the steps of City Hall, October 14. They were joined by City Council Members Jumaane Williams and Steven Levin, who pledged their continued support of tenants’ demands. Darryl Herring, a leader of the Three- Quarter House Tenant Organizing Project (TOP), described how hundreds of tenants have been routinely evicted by operators, often with the help of police.

The situation led TOP to organize a citywide campaign against illegal lockouts, which resulted in the NYPD issuing a citywide directive (known as a FINEST message) clarifying that evictions can only be made with a court order. “For years, three-quarter operators have claimed that they run transitional ‘programs,’ and can ‘discharge’ tenants whenever they want,” said Matthew Main, an attorney with MFY Legal Services, which defends three-quarter house tenants. “With the NYPD directive in hand, tenants have a way to defend themselves.

It’s an important first step in stopping this abuse.” When Gary Crawford refused to leave his three-quarter house after he was awakened in the middle of the night and told to get out, the house manager called the police, who told Crawford he had to leave. He went to Housing Court several times to get a judge to reinstate him, and contacted MFY Legal Services for help.

He was reinstated with MFY’s help, but spent weeks sleeping on subway platforms and the street before once again having a roof over his head. Another resident, Leonard Washington, said: “I was doing my thing, doing well. They gave me an hour to leave. They said they’d call the police if I didn’t. I took as much as I could carry and left everything else behind. I was homeless. I stayed on the street for two weeks.” José Capo described how his landlord locked him out of his three-quarter house and told him that they would not let him back in without a court order. “I moved to the three-quarter house because I needed a roof over my head and it was the only place I could afford.

I went to school, did job training, and earned a certificate. My world fell apart when they put me out,” he said. When the landlord ignored the court order Mr. Capo got ordering the landlord to let him return home, Mr. Capo called the police and showed them a copy of the FINEST Message that he kept in his pocket. The police told the landlord that illegal eviction is a crime and ordered the landlord to let Mr. Capo back into his room, keeping him from becoming homeless. “I really don’t know where I’d be if the police didn’t help me get back in that night,” Mr. Capo said. “Illegal evictions in Three-Quarter Houses are extremely harmful and destabilizing to a tenant, and often force those evicted into uncertain futures,” said City Council Member Jumaane D. Williams, Chair of the Council’s Housing and Buildings Committee.

“Whether living in a three-quarter house or not, all tenants deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and their rights need to be protected. I applaud the Tenant Organizing Project for advocating against illegal evictions by working with the NYPD to protect New York’s most vulnerable tenants, but hope police officers do more to ensure bad landlords do not violate the law.” Three-quarter houses are privately owned, for-profit residences that rent out rooms to New York City’s most vulnerable individuals, including people who recovering from substance abuse, reentering society after being incarcerated, trying to get themselves off of the street, or are suffering from mental illness.

While the exact number of three-quarter houses is unknown, researchers at John Jay College’s Prisoner Reentry Institute have identified at least 317, including 250 in Brooklyn alone. Although three-quarter house operators often describe their houses as “programs,” they offer no services beyond a bed and are unlicensed and unregulated. MFY Legal Services provides free civil legal services to more than 9,000 poor and low-income New Yorkers annually in housing, public benefits, health, consumer, foreclosure and employment matters.

Neighbors Together is a community-based organization in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Brooklyn, which works to end hunger and poverty in the surrounding communities, providing emergency food, social services, and support for tenants to organize for systemic change. MFY collaborated with Neighbors Together and three-quarter house residents to create the Three-Quarter House Tenant Organizing Project (TOP), a tenantrun organization fighting for fair and just treatment of three-quarter house tenants.

TOP holds regular meetings and workshops at Neighbors Together, which serves as the nexus of grassroots activity for threequarter house residents who live in houses throughout Brownsville, East New York, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick and surrounding neighborhoods. With the emergence of three-quarter houses in the Bronx, the work includes Bronx residents as well.

NEW YORK, NY (TIP): At a press conference in Harlem, October 14, New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer unveiled findings of a new audit showing widespread deficiencies in the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s (DOHMH) response to citizen complaints about rodents. “This is a rat race we’re all losing and it’s one that affects our quality of life,” Comptroller Stringer said. “When people discover infestations in their homes and on their blocks, they expect a quick and effective response.

Our audit found that the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene wasn’t managing its pest control program effectively, even as the number of complaints about pests grew.” The number of pest complaints in New York City jumped from 22,300 in FY 12 to 24,586 in FY 13. Comptroller Stringer’s audit examined whether one of the agencies primarily responsible for pest control, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, adequately followed its procedures for addressing pest control complaints during the period from July 1, 2011 through April 8, 2014. DOHMH receives pest complaints online and through New York City’s 311 complaint call system, which are then assigned to one of five regional offices for inspection and notification, as well as the baiting and cleanup of properties if owners fail to act.

Auditors found DOHMH had weak oversight of its Pest Control Services program and failed to follow its own procedures:

In 24 percent of the cases examined, DOHMH failed to check out citizen complaints in the 10-day target that it has established as the proper time in which to respond;

In 160 cases, there was no field inspection attempt at all and 14 still had an open status in DOHMH’s system as of March 2014;

DOHMH terminated action on some citizen complaints prematurely without conducting the required number of inspection attempts and did not meet its own targets for reviewing inspections performed in the field;

There was no indication that assessments were conducted in 44 percent of 386 instances where inspectors requested clean up services during FY13, a required step before remediation can proceed; and

DOHMH failed to give some property owners notifications of city orders to eliminate rodent conditions – thus increasing the risk that rat infestations may spread through a neighborhood. “Rats are a daily, stomach-turning insult to New Yorkers – whether they’re scurrying over people’s feet on the sidewalks, invading homes where children sleep or swarming through restaurants,” Stringer said. “Without a vigilant and timely response by the City to citizen complaints, this problem will come back to bite us again and again.”

In a series of recommendations, auditors said DOHMH should:

Generate reports to identify complaints that have been pending too long, to ensure citizens get a more timely response.

Improve its controls over pest control processes, to ensure that all requested exterminations and approved clean-ups are conducted.

Modify its procedures to ensure that complaints are not closed after only one failed attempt to gain access to a site.

Make certain that supervisory checks are conducted for inspections at or above the percentage specified in its procedures to ensure that problems in the field have been dealt with efficiently and completely. In response to the Comptroller’s audit, DOHMH generally agreed in principle with all but 1 of the audit’s 12 recommendations. However, DOHMH argued that the audit did not take into account the agency’s other efforts to address pest control problems. “When it comes to rat infestations, New Yorkers expect much more from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene than excuses and denials. I fully expect this audit will help trigger a new, more serious course of action,” Stringer said.