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Date: August 10, 2020 09:51AM
They're actually trying to help while conservative Christians refuse to wear masks and deny the virus even exists.
https://religionnews.com/2020/06/26/from-farm-labor-to-food-trucks-sikhs-are-adapting-langar-to-serve-the-masses-during-a-pandemic/In northern New Jersey’s Ramapo Mountains, the coronavirus has hit the Ramapough Lenape Tribe hard. But deaths, job loss, food insecurity, isolation and mysterious sickness are not new to the tribe.
“We’ve been suffering from our own quote-unquote COVID-19 for 60 years,” said Chief Vincent Mann, head of the Ramapough Tribe’s Turtle Clan. “So this has really been wearing us down.”
The Indigenous community has fought for recognition of its tribal status. It has seen racism and discrimination. And it has faced deadly health disparities, environmental crises and legal challenges caused by decades of illegal, systematic toxic waste dumping by the Ford Motor Company. Thousands of tons of toxic paint sludge contaminated the watershed where Ramapoughs drank water and the woods where they foraged food, devastating the tribe and causing rare cancers.
Aid from local volunteers, including Sikh groups in the area, has at least helped “take the sting out of COVID,” Mann said.
Since the onset of the pandemic, volunteers from the Guru Nanak Mission in Oakland, New Jersey, and the Sikh non-profit Khalsa Aid — which connected with the tribe through Four Directions Mutual Aid, a group supporting Northeast tribes during the pandemic — have delivered thousands of pounds full of culturally sensitive food items, baby formula, diapers and other supplies to the tribe.
Their efforts are an extension of Sikh communities’ long tradition of feeding those in need through langar, the volunteer-run community kitchens where gurdwaras serve free vegetarian meals to any and all visitors.
But members of the Oakland gurdwara have also been lending their time and manual labor in hopes of creating something that feeds the tribe for generations to come.
The tribe is in the early stages of developing the nine-acre Munsee Three Sisters Farm, where members have begun growing hemp as a cash crop to generate revenue for the community down the line. They’re also growing crops, including potatoes, beans, squash and corn, to sustain their own families. Local groups like the Sikhs have donated compost, seeds, plants, supplies and equipment to make the endeavor possible.
Through the farm, clan mother Michaeline Picaro said, the tribe has a chance to rebuild its self-reliance. She envisions the project as a way to reconnect members with Indigenous farming practices and the land they once roamed without fear of being “poisoned.”
“This farm is a place of healing, on a nutritional level,” Picaro said, “where they will reap the benefits of the harvest of healthy food, but also healing spiritually and from the multigenerational emotional trauma in this community.”
For the gurdwara, lending a hand in this food sovereignty initiative is the ultimate act of investment —following the tradition of Sikh founder Guru Nanak, who famously was given money as a child by his father to invest and instead used it to feed some hungry men he encountered.
“When we provide seeds or farming tools, that sustains communities for much longer than just doing a food truck once or twice,” explained Amritpal Kaur, a Khalsa Aid volunteer who assisted at the farm and with food drop-offs. “Especially because of the pandemic, we want to provide both short-term food staples and long-term solutions.”