Highlights
- Melbourne-based Punjabi family aims to share books sourced from India about Sikh and Punjabi culture with others
- The books have text in Punjabi and English side-by-side, making it easy to understand
Melbourne-based Arvinder Singh and his wife wanted to educate their young sons about their culture but couldn't find any literary source in Australia to provide suitable books.
When they finally managed to source some quality books for their children, they decided to share them with other families at nominal costs.
Talking to SBS Punjabi, Mr Singh said, “most bedtime storybooks available in Australia don’t impart any knowledge about Punjabi culture and heritage. Therefore, my wife and I decided to shop for them from overseas. Our search ended with a publisher based in Amritsar in India.”
Mr Singh and his wife browsed through a long list of books and selected a few for their sons aged six and two. These books cover cultural, historical and religious aspects of Punjabi culture.
“Now that we have sourced the books in bulk, we would like to share them with other Punjabi-Australian parents who might be looking for the same answers to questions as we were,” Mr Singh said.
In order to do this, Mr Singh has set up a page on Facebook.
“We selected the books very carefully. They have text in Punjabi and English side-by-side, making it easy to understand for the youngsters of our community living in Australia,” he added.
Books to connect with Punjabi values Source: Arwinder Singh
“There are a lot of free resources online but there lies the risk as well. Along with the good material, there is so much unwanted material too that is available free of cost, which is dangerous for the young brains,” Mr Singh elaborated.
“Our culture and religion advocate the principles of sharing and caring. This is what we want our children to learn and adopt in their lives too.
Click on the player at the top of the page to listen to this interview in Punjabi.
