Organised by Sikh Arts and Cultural Association - SACA, this year the ride celebrated its 18th year in succession.

Enjoy the view!

Popularity: 79% [?]

I was in a Mc Donalds fast food outlet positioned in a squashed corner of their seating arrangement. The table for four behind me was empty. Luckily we were standing up to leave and as all well mannered folks positioning our chairs under the table to leave the basic set-up in some form of order.

At the same time a white girl approached our table at speed. With a milkshake in one hand and two straws in the other the look in her eye was one of penetrating contempt. I wondered how a girl of probably no more than 14 or 15 years old could have formed an attitude of such hate. She uttered the following words with venom, ‘Excuse me can we have some space here please’.

She pushed or more like shoved past us, obstructing my opportunity to exit, twisting to get into the empty corner. I slide past but I wanted to make her realize that her behaviour was unacceptable. Therefore, I simply and in the most polite manner possible said, ‘Well we were just leaving and you can have all the space in the world.’ Her friend followed closely behind her grabbed a seat and shared a facial expression of, Wow! These people speak English and are not being perturbed or affected by our bully girl tactics.

I left the outlet feeling that they both had been dealt with accordingly. Was my approach good or bad? In one sense it was good in that it did not wish to stand for nonsense. In another way it may have been bad as I too admittedly was showing an element of attitude.

A few hours later I debated why after almost 50years (plus if you include early UK settlers) and a few hundreds of years of the British being involved in India, some elements of the white British community still had both a superiority complex and an attitude of hate?

The truth is that our society is still segregated today. The episode I have just documented is trivial compared to daily bully tactics that happen in school or even in the work place.

The cause has to be combination of a lack of education but also the way that society has evolved - It is a fact that for certain situations invisible boundaries are present.

The following factors drive this segregation:

1. PR & Media – Ignoring contributions from all communities
2. School – Poor world education
3. Education – Lack of world politics or peace strategies
4. Workplace politics – Poor Human Resource Management strategies

What we really need is to unite under common global issues:

* Doing some charity work together – finding a common cause for our energies
* Harmonising town centres in terms of wealthy and poor areas
* Bringing people together to discuss the reasons for acting in a prejudice manner

I wonder if I met the same girls in McDonalds again in say a year’s time, whether their attitudes will have changed? Probably not without any investment in fresh initiatives…

Popularity: 59% [?]

Over the last 18 years SACA, Sikh Arts and Cultural Association (SACA) have raised Thousands of pounds for children’s charities, for example:
Help a London Child (Capital Radio FM), Cash for Kids (BRMBFM), Wolverhampton Children’s ward, Ealing Hospital, ‘Playground in the Sky’,
Dr Barnado’s, Contact a Family, Red Cross, dEBra (skin disorder charity) Downs Syndrome Research Foundation, SCOPE, NSPCC and Whizz Kids.

The charity selected this year was Children with Leukaemia

Night Rain!
Having taken the coach-up on the 20th July - Incidentally, it was still raining by the time we got to Birmingham!

Good Morning Cyclists!
Over 300 cyclists started from Smethwick Gurdwara on Saturday morning. (21st July at approximately 7:45am). 75% of the day and close to 80% of the first day’s 100 miles was covered with the rain just pelting down.

Cyclists rode all day taking limited breaks with a great support crew - between steep and subtle hills (multi-levels and ones that felt like the were going on and on…) closing off the first leg of the weekend event in Luton with a wonderful reception at Luton Gurdwara.

The Second Day
On the second day the sun came out together with some cool breezes. Cyclist zoomed past St Albans and reached the infamous hill in Elstree, just after Radlett. Happy to have tackled the final big hill, lunch was served before the final leg home to West London!

A Fantastic Reception – Probably the biggest ever !
During the event’s finale, in Southall a 1 mile procession that included cyclists, official support vehicles and open air sound systems from Fantasia sounds.

After the finishing parade on the Southall Broadway at 3pm, the ride finished at Southall park. This year an open air concert was organised to greet the riders and everyone involved. The committees, various crews and cyclist families and supporters really enjoyed the show. The event was also supported by Channel Punjab (who also recorded the entire 2 day event for a future documentary),

The SACA organisation is grateful to all the support teams, 300+ cyclists and their receiving families. The langar and reception was excellent and enjoyed by all.

A team effort
In addition, the SACA organisation would like to Thank all that took part in this ride, the list of organisers and organisations below is not exhaustive.

The ride committee (Dr Savi, Dave, Sandy, Pala, Jas, Harmi, Ranj, Sati, Bobby, Ester, Arv, Raj, Chas, Jatinder, Tony, Manjit Singh, Harminder, Jas Gill, Sharan, Happy, Gurdeep, Hardeep, Sukh, The Panesar brothers, Dr Rajdeep, Dr Rosie, Harry, Taran, Verinder, all the ride marshals and support crew………. ).
Channel Punjab, Rocky’s, Herbies & the various ride sponsors, Metropolitan Police and Metropolitan Police Sikh Association and Gurdwara’s in Smethwick (Birmingham) and Luton.

… and all that took part to make this ride a safe and fun event.

PS The picture below is my father, Pritam Singh and I in the park - at the Riders Finale event.

Popularity: 68% [?]

The Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI) exists as an alliance of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and trade union organisations…in a hope to promote and improve working conditions of workers producing goods for the UK market.
There is an expectation that they can help to meet or exceeed international labour standards. The tuth is that they can provide guidelines but can not force it.

In my last article I wrote about how the confectionery industry was falling short or very short of helping to stop children from falling into slavery.

Unfortunately, with major stores like ASDA, Tesco and Primark also imposing low production cost, one result is Bangladeshi workers working in extreme inhumane conditions, long hours and both phyiscal and mental abuse.

In the UK, if a worker is sick or has a sick relative the employer can show humanity by giving time off. However, with the contracts in place with Bangladeshi suppliers, they (the factory owners) can impose whatever torment they want!

An investigation by The Guardian newspaper reveals the extent to UK retailers hung up on profits.

I am concerned when the view of some of the UK retailer board members suggests that they will do more harm by not trading!? Although they may conduct audits to find out how much is the system changing, I suspect it is not fast enough.

I visited, http://www.ethicaltrade.org/ and noticed that the site was first started in 1998. That is almost 10 years.

It is also worth visiting: http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2114582,00.html , dated 28th June 2007. This report outlines how fruit picker: Gertruida Baartman (described as ‘at the bottom of Tesco’s food-chain supply’) has barely enough to eat. How she lost her job and had to fight to get it back as she campaigned for better conditions at her farm. This was after she returned from a meeting at Tesco. Read on to find out the discrepancy between big bonus awards and how the ETI is both voluntary and although it has strived to make a change, a study by Sussex University reveals that it needs to strive for more change.

The problem has to be inherently with us.
Consumers in the West want cheap clothes, ironically some designer wear is also low cost production based.

The fundamentals of change are based on changing commercial processes, for example:

* Improving audits
* More investment across more farms, e.g: fruit
* Allowing Trade unions to exist in clothing factories
* Greater ethical procedures in the way in which retailers deal with suppliers
* Consideration given to a living wage
* Communication with the consumer.

Would we pay more if we knew that the conditions at the source were getting better? I’m sure we would – no one has tried that one balanced with reduced director bonuses!

Although another article issued on July 5th 2007, headlines -  ‘Our members have improved 3.3 million workers lives’ – no doubt this is from the Ethical Trade Initiative perspective. See: http://business.guardian.co.uk/greenbusiness/story/0,,2118893,00.html . It is clear that more needs to be done. The article suggests: Workers are best served by three things: trade unions that are free; employers that obey national labour laws; and governments that enforce it. Workers need much more of all three.

The key words that needs to be added and emphasized is ‘sustained commitment from all’ – agencies, retailers, employers and consumers.

Popularity: 60% [?]