Coalition Program Areas

The Sikh Coalition’s administrative structure allows for effective interaction with multiple government agencies, legal representatives, gurdwaras, and community members. The three major program areas—Legal and Government Affairs, Education, and Community Relations—each contains additional areas of concentration such as Youth Outreach and Women’s Empowerment (both are campaigns within Community Relations).

These three programs create and execute projects in accordance with the goals and objectives outlined in the Coalition’s mission. The majority of the Coalition’s work leverages the synergy between these program areas to address larger issues more effectively. For example, if the Legal Program received frequent reports of harassment of Sikh school children in a particular jurisdiction, it would call upon the Education Program to implement a program for teaching non-Sikh school children in that jurisdiction about Sikhism. In this way, many of the individual objectives of the program areas involve coordinating with other aspects of the Coalition and its members.

Through this structure, program areas rapidly achieve substantial tactical results while simultaneously tackling strategic initiatives set forth for the year. This is particularly critical as the Coalition must constantly balance strategic programming with being diligent and responsive to unexpected issues that arise and face the Sikh community. This section highlights each program area’s focus and accomplishments in 2003.