 |
| Kashi Adhikari |
The Nepalese-Bhutan community in Columbus, Ohio, through
the Vedic Welfare Society is planning a cultural center for the over 40,000
population to house a place of worship, social and educational activities.
President of Nepalese/Bhutan Society of Columbus, Ohio,
Kashi Adhikari told TheNewAmericans that they have started a “community
outreach hosting talks, interaction and public discussion regarding the huge
challenges.”
“In fact, this started at a time when the President of
the United States issued an executive order about the complete safety and
security of our citizens. To attain this we need to understand each other, have
faith in one another, believe in hard work so then only we can place trust on
one another's shoulder.
“Our focus at this time will be creating awareness among
our community members to be vigilant and do the most needful as expected and
required by the law. Our hope is that once we accomplish this regional public
discussion we will then come to a point of mutual compromise to find a
conducive place of establishing a community center and fund raiser for building
infrastructure,” he added.
He said that, “right now, there are 200 people, who are
genuine members of this religious charitable organization. These people
contribute $10 monthly to pay for the temporary location of the cultural
center. With this, we are able to pay for utilities, provide cultural
engagements and education involvement for our members. We are also teaching to
retain our own language in this great country. It will be very prosperous for
our new generation if they don’t forget our language. We do that from 10am
every Sunday until noon.
“We have civic classes on Tuesday and Thursday from 3pm
to 5pm. ETSS has been collaboratively working with us on the civic class. We
have our congregation every Saturday from 12.30pm till 2.30pm. There will be a
religious teacher, we sing songs and religious. It is a time to be able to sit
in yoga posture and think of inside instead of the world,” he stated.
Adhikari disclosed that “because we don’t have a cultural
center or a place of worship in this community, 103 people have already
committed suicide. That is a very sad thing on our part. We are coming together
to share our story. Our country, Bhutan is located between China in the North
and India in the South. Most people left in the 1990s because the government
couldn’t accommodate our culture and religion.”
He added that, “to accomplish this goal we need assistance
for sharing information and resources. I believe that America is founded on the
guiding principal of the nation of melting pot”.
No comments:
Post a Comment