MGC women wing 10th annual event coming up

By Dr Amarjeet Kaur | EVENT

By the Grace of Waheguruji, the Malaysian Gurdwaras Council (MGC) women’s wing, also known as the MGC Istri Satsang (MGCIS), will organise it’s annual national level semagam event from 31 August to 2 Sept at Gurdwara Sahib Seremban.

This year is a special milestone for us as this will be our 10th year of running such a semagam. We will celebrate with many special events. It also happens to fall on the celebration of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Perkash Dehara.

From year to year, we have tried to bring to our fellow sisters the latest issues in our community. Last year, besides katha and gurmat parchar, we had organised topics of social importance to our community, like the safety regulations of social media for our children, personal grooming and understanding the generation gap and the Sikh Rehat Maryada.

This year we will be looking at marriage in the 21st century, the roles of gurdwaras, talk on skin care and more.

We have also specially invited Penji Kawaljit Kaur from the Women’s Gurmit College in Ludhiana for this year’s program to enlightening us on Gurbani and Gurmat vichar. We will have four kirtan and katha sessions and several discussion sessions over the two night and three days.

The istri satsang jathas from the various gurdwaras will have an opportunity to lead in darbar programs and also sing the praises of Waheguru. We will also enjoy the anand of kirtan from the melodious voice of penji Hardev Kaur. Participants can look forward to gurmat vichar (discussion) by Kawaljit Kaur and skin care talk by Dr Pushpa. Roles of Gurdwaras too will be scrutinised to help the sewadars and istri satsangs of gurdwaras to improve our services to our sangat(congregation). A good initiative would be to introduce a welfare division and an education division to our existing services to cater for the needy.

A special forum is being held on “Marriages in the 21st century”. We have an interesting panel of a young adult, a preacher, a lawyer and an academician. The topic is relevant to the scenario today. It’s a scenario which many older parents are struggling to understand and adapt to. This event has been organised specially for the young adults.

For fun activities we have a walk and aerobics session in the park on Saturday morning. Breakfast in the park certainly sounds like a picnic. Besides that, as usual, our participants have prepared kavitas and dramas, highlighting everyday life issues, which in the past have always proven to be hilarious and side splitting. On Saturday night we will have a speaker’s corner where different viewpoints from several speakers will be shared with the sangat.

As one can see the program is not only targeted to the women but is for the entire family. Both men and youngsters are encouraged to attend this event.

Finally on 2 September, we will be celebrating the Perkash Dehara of Dhan Dhan Sri Guru Granth Ji Maharaj together with the Seremban sangat.

We have had a very encouraging response from all our penjis. Their enthusiasm has motivated us all throughout the last 10 years.

It has been a real pleasure for me to have worked with these amazing ladies. They come from all over Peninsula Malaysia, from up North, Center and the South. We have slowly, but steadily, gained momentum and now have a great network amongst ourselves.

Recently we have had the pleasure of gaining the acquaintances of some lovely ladies from the Sikh women NGOs like the Ekta Club and Sikh Women’s Awareness Network (SWAN). On 31 August we will converge in Seremban for a fun and enlightening event.

MGCIS will also be commemorating this milestone with a souvenir program. Societies, individuals and the business community who would like to contribute are invited to support us by placing their advertisement in the program. The souvenir program will be circulated to all the attending participants and gurdwaras. The response has been encouraging.

For further inquiries please contact us at:gurdwaracouncil@gmail.com or whatsapp +6016-5575883

[Dr Amarjeet Kaur is the president of the MGC Istri Satsang]

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