Introduction

quDu AwgY Ardwis hmwrI jIau ipMfu sBu qyrw ]
I offer my prayer to You; my body and soul are all Yours.
tuDh aagai ardaas hamaaree jee-o pind sabh tayraa.

khu nwnk sB qyrI vifAweI koeI nwau n jwxY myrw ]
Says Nanak, this is all Your greatness; no one even knows my name.
kaho naanak sabh tayree vadi-aa-ee ko-ee naa-o na jaanai mayraa.

20 years ago while in Guruji’s room a thought was sent to me to ask God for something. I did not know what and why this thought kept entering my mind but I felt a great need to ask for something. Curiosity took hold of my thoughts and I started to contemplate as to what I should ask. It was several days later and a lot of thinking before it occurred to me, I was doing my Ardass and I asked God to show me a way that with one action the lives of millions of people all over the world would be changed, especially those living in poverty.

After 10 yrs of doing Ardass and asking God everyday a picture started to form in my mind. It took another 5 years for the picture to become clear, the final piece of the puzzle came 4 years ago in 1999 while I was in Harmander Sahib in Amritsar. It was 7am in the morning after Asa Di Var, we were looking for a taxi to take to the hotel from the Gudwara but there were no taxis so we took several rickshaws. My driver was a Sikh aged 35-40, he looked married with possibly 2-3 kids at home and his living was afforded by driving the rickshaw. Feeling sympathetic for him I asked him if he owned the rickshaw, he said it was rented. After talking to him I came to know that he paid 10 rupees a day to hire the rickshaw and a new one would cost 3000 rupees. At this point, the first thought that came to my mind was that a Sikh brother of mine is bonded by the chains of poverty, something he will never be able to escape from. I felt like giving him the money to buy a new rickshaw and doing a good deed. But the size of the deed needed to be multiplied millions of times so that all our Sikh brothers and sisters could be released from the chains of poverty.

In my explosion of thoughts in that moment everything came together, the missing piece of the puzzle was before the eyes of my mind. I was ecstatic and kept thanking Guruji endlessly. After 15 years everything was clear, I could see the picture now and what I saw was that one day in Amritsar there would be no Sikh coolies at the train station, no Sikh rickshaw drivers in Punjab, no Sikh scooter drivers in Delhi. SHS would have provided the doorway for them to beat poverty.

With much humility I want everyone to know that this is not my idea and it does not belong to me, it belongs to all of us. I will endeavor to express the thoughts that have been coming to me as best as possible.

Sardar Jatinder Singh Uppal
Melbourne, Australia

About SHS

What is SHS?

Sikhs Helping Sikhs (SHS) is a Sikh based, non-violent, non-profit organisation that aims to benefit lives of Sikhs and unite them in the process. It is an organisation where it’s members’ work towards benefiting each other with the desire of forming a strong quality, high integrity, loyal and religious minded community. The establishment has 2 objectives and 2 conditions.

What are the objectives of SHS?

• Enrichment of Sikhs
• Enrichment of Sikhism

What are the conditions of SHS?

• Any Sikh or organization becoming a family member of SHS is obligated to give 10% of their earnings (dasvand) as ordered by Guru Gobind Singh Ji.
  
  Any Sikh joining the family acknowledges the order given by Guru Gobind Singh Ji on the 5 K’s and works towards coming into obedience of that order.

What do we gain from SHS?

The gains are so numerous it is difficult to put all of them down. However, some of the obvious benefits are:

• Eliminate Poverty (also for non-Sikhs)
• Providing Support, Strength and Hope
• Training and Education
• Employment Opportunities
• Migration
• Social and Family Values
• Psychological Assistance
• Religious Support
• Financial Support
• Matrimonial Services
• Educational Financial Assistance

e.g. Think of the children of the rickshaw driver, he availed the opportunities provided by SHS which resulted in his children becoming educated and achieving success and wealth. These kids would also be second generation members of SHS and would be contributing to changing the lives of other Sikhs.

How Can SHS Help

This is an example of common case scenario’s.

I am a university graduate with a degree in Computer Engineering and have just joined the workforce. I am looking for advice and opportunities in the workforce so I go to SHS office in New Delhi and meet with consultants who take my bio data down. I am informed about the conditions, objectives and opportunities that SHS would make available to me such as migration, further education, employment and support. I signed up and asked about assistance in migrating overseas and was informed that the SHS office in the country I choose to migrate to would assist me in any and every way. I was interested in migrating to Australia but was told that employment opportunities in my field of expertise were limited due to an over supply of capable employees and limited jobs. I took the advice of the consultants and took their help to find a job in computer engineering in New Delhi as to gain experience in the field I am educated in and to keep exploring the opportunities the SHS network worldwide had to offer. I am now an SHS family member and give 10% of my earnings. I earn 15,000 rupees a month and after expenses net 7000 rupees dasvant factor 700 rupees.

SHS Structure

What will be the structure of SHS?

The SHS structure will be a 2 tier structure. The SHS Church Structure will be sitting on top of the SHS Business Structure.

Examples

Below are some examples of how the businesses and/or individuals would operate.

1. SHS computers Melbourne branch is dealing in computer hardware and associated services. The company has Sikh employees, is owned by Sikhs and is run by Sikh management.

• Estimated turnover for 1 year: Approx 5million dollars
• Gross Margin: $1million
• Net margin is $500,000
• Dasvand factor is $50,000.

SHS computers Sydney branch has a similar business, SHS computers Auckland, Christchurch, Fiji, Singapore, New York, L.A etc. Approximately 313 offices, each doing the same business, each individually owned by Sikhs and all joining together, buying together from Taiwan/China negotiating the best price on components and all exchanging information to benefit each other.

• Estimated total turnover worldwide of SHS Computers: $ 1billion dollars
• Estimated gross profit: $ 200 million
  Estimated net profit: $ 100 million
• Dasvand factor, $ 10 million

2. I am a Sikh taxi driver in Melbourne; I have been approached by SHS to join. I have a loan from the bank of $80,000 paying an interest rate of 11%. By joining SHS and bulk borrowing my interest rate drops to 6.5% also serviced contracts and petrol buying can be bought in bulk saving me money. In the end I calculated my dasvand was 10% and my saving was greater than my dasvant so I decided to join SHS Taxis Melbourne. I was placed with a group of 30 other members of SHS Taxis Melbourne and as a group we would meet once every 3 months and would receive a newsletter once every 10 weeks. Our group had one mukh sevadar who was in charge of our group and would report back to Melbourne SHS head office. SHS taxis Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, and Adelaide etc. have a total membership of 220 drivers and through the newsletter we learn about the 21,000 thousand taxis drivers who are SHS members worldwide. Every member with the same objective; enrichment of Sikhs, enrichment of Sikhism. Every member giving dasvand.

• Dasvand factor each approx: $2000 * 21,000 members
• Total Dasvand factor of SHS taxis: $42 million.

3. I am a Sikh graduate in Los Angeles with a degree in International Business and want to start up my own business. I heard about SHS and went to the LA office to ask for guidance and assistance. After meeting a few consultants and going through a screening process I signed an undertaking acknowledging the conditions and objectives of SHS. I was given a list of SHS family businesses I could enter into. I chose SHS stationary, I was put into contact with SHS stationary businesses that were already operating in other parts of the All of the United States and in other countries. A credit line was set-up and with an input of my own capital I started to set-up an office in LA for SHS Stationary. I received beneficial information from the other SHS Stationary Offices which included catalogues, suppliers, product lines, costs and selling prices etc. I also receive a SHS Newsletter every 3 months with information of other Sikh businesses, success stories, new opportunities available and the growing number of members within the SHS community. I also received advice in how to best market the product. Going to Gudwara I asked Gianji to do Ardass before I start my business. I am now highly successful and am able to help and employ other Sikhs.

• My turnover: $10,000,000
• Nett Profit $1,000,000
• Dasvand factor: $100,000.
• Global turnover: $ 3 billion for SHS Stationary
• Dasvand factor: $ 60 million

All SHS businesses will be inter-connected. For example SHS Stationary Supplies will supply their products to all businesses interested in their company but also to Sikh businesses selling stationary. The aim is to keep money circulating throughout Sikh businesses in order to help them grow and expand resulting in hiring more Sikh employees. The structure will be similar to the above example on computers above.

Benefactors

Who are Benefactors of SHS and what is their role within the organization?

Benefactors of SHS are people who already have businesses and would like to contribute 10% of their earnings and adopt the conditions and objectives of SHS. For example:

I am a business man in Delhi and was approached by SHS. After several meetings I decided to become a family member of SHS and donate 10% of my earnings (dasvand) to help enrich other Sikh lives. I deal in steel utensils and my export is approximately 50 crores rupees. I have an office in New York and most of my business comes in America. Being a family member of SHS availed me the opportunity to market my product through SHS offices around the world. In projection, I realized that I could increase my turnover immensely. The only irony I felt was by contributing dasvand I was going to receive much more in return.

crn srin gur eyk pYfw jwie cl
charan saran gur eaek paiddaa jaae ch ala

siq gur koit pYfw Awgy hoie lyq hY ]
sath gur kott paiddaa aagae hoe laeth hai ||

The Vision

I see 350, 000 Sikhs working together in SHS Offices in every major capital city in the world. Each office to house over 1000 companies owned and managed by Sikhs. Every company will have 313 offices worldwide. All individually owned and working and promoting one another.

• Estimated number of SHS Offices worldwide: 313, 000
• Estimated group turnover of SHS: $ 313,000,000,000 USD
• Worldwide Dasvand Factor: $ 300, 000, 000 USD

How do we create a structure that will bring to life this vision for every Sikh in the world? How do we create a structure that can safeguard our money and ensure that it is used according to the objectives of SHS? How do we protect ourselves from those who are corrupt and would work against this vision, including those who are family members of SHS? These points and many others are in need of discussion and solution.

Compassion towards all of mankind is the very essence of the teachings of our gurus, in helping ourselves we will able to help all other races irrespective of caste or color. Poverty is an ocean and in our journey on Earth if we are not short of effort then we have done our best and it will be counted in the House of God.

In conclusion, we the sons and daughters of Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji, should realize the mission of our Guru to be united towards charting our future in becoming economically and spiritually sound worldwide, in every country, in every city, in every suburb, in every house and in every family. May Waheguru show us the success of Sikhs Helping Sikhs (SHS).