ORANGE, CA: The California Sikh Council and SCOC hosted the fourth Annual Interfaith Youth Forum, held at the Sikh Center of Orange County (SCOC) on March 9. The event is organized by the Interfaith Council of Central Orange County. The event was an incredible experience, with over 100 high school and 40 adult attendees from many different faith backgrounds.

The Sikh youth did an absolutely amazing job in giving their peers a taste of a Sikh program, by showing them into the Gurdwara and themselves performing Anand Sahib, Ardaas, and Hukam Nama with translation, followed by distribution of parshaad.

All the youth then participated in a dialogue tackling some tough questions regarding the politics of religion, and separation of church and state. The format for the dialogue consisted of tables of eight youth of different faiths with one adult moderator to discuss the preset questions.

After the formal program, the Sikh youth then helped with serving langar to their guests, turban tying demonstrations, and making bookmarks with names written in Gurmukhi. The youth were then able to informally interact and ask each other questions.

According to Mike Penn, who is a member of the ICCOC and who spearheads this effort each year, "The purpose of this Interfaith Youth Forum is to bring together young people from diverse ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds, and to engage them in dialogue.

True dialogue is a conversation on a common subject between two or more persons of differing points of view and/or backgrounds. This dialogue's purpose is two-fold: first, for each participant to learn from the other so that he or she can understand and grow; second, for each participating adult to learn from the young what they think, what their concerns are, and how they deal with differing points of view. We feel that this commitment to dialogue will affect relationships in a constructive way in our places of worship and in our community."

Dr Jasjit Kaur noted that, "Of all the interfaith work we do, that with the youth is the most meaningful in terms of education about Sikhi, and counteracting the unfortunate negative image of the turban in today's society.

Our high school kids have participated in this interfaith dialogue for the past three years, and have done a fantastic job tackling ethical questions for themselves, and explaining to their peers what they are about. Our kids have made a huge impact today on their peers, who will go on to tell others about their experience."

Special thanks to 8th graders Anupreet Kaur, Simran Kaur, and Arjun Singh for their help with clean-up and serving.Also to be thanked are the many, many parents who helped with cleaning, directing traffic, set-up, decorating, post-event clean-up, and a multitude of other things that made our guests feel welcome, and helped the program go smoothly.