Telangana Sikh Society

The Telangana Sikh Society (TSS), which will be five years old soon, is a humanitarian institution with a broad social reach to the poor. It focuses on attending to their unmet education and health needs. People with low incomes lack urgent medical attention like accident victims, terminal illnesses like cancer, emergency health issues like cardiac care, and children with disability that need to be corrected are among the focus areas. In this manner, the TSS has met the hospitalization expenses of over 1,000 patients as well as post–hospitalisation expenses of these patients. Many more have been advised and sent to specialists for their opinion of them as outpatients. As word spread, some needy patients from nearby states, including Maharashtra, Karnataka, Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and even Madhya Pradesh, have sought health care services through the TSS in Hyderabad as the city is now a well-recognized hub for quality health care in the country. During the break out of the pandemic, in several phases, including the lockdown phase, the TSS has deputed teams with groceries and other essentials to the habitations of the migrant Sikhligars – the Below the Poverty Line blacksmiths who move around with their families, like nomads, earning a livelihood making crude metal pots and pans. They are perhaps among the poorest of the poor. In one instance, we have enabled 36 such families living without a permanent shelter for four generations to get the 2BHK apartments allotted by the Telangana government. This is in February 2023. For want of awareness, they had not approached the authorities. The TSS has, through handholding, enabled the current generation to find the defining moment for a place they can call home. As part of our consistent campaign in mainstreaming impressionable youth and inculcating values, in July 2019, the TSS conducted the My Nanak camp to commemorate the 550th birth anniversary of the legendary guru for two days at the Aalankrita Resorts. Lessons were imparted in enhancing human values and improving interpersonal and personality development skills of the participating students from poor economic backgrounds across Telangana. In keeping with this tradition, the TSS hosted a three-day residential learning and leadership skills enhancement Camp at the Aalakrita Resorts between September 27 and 30, 2022, again for poor students pan – Telangana. Called Energize, the camp gave them an opportunity for moral rearmament. Disrupted families where women most often are victims of domestic violence, alcoholism among the men and neglect of children characterize the homes of many of them. This camp, for 650-odd students, through various activities, helped them cultivate a positive outlook and yearn for opportunities to take life farther ahead than that of their parent's and grandparent's generations. For TSS, the larger goal of inducing change for a better quality of life remains a constant endeavour. Towards this end, it brings together those committed to the more significant social concerns.