Sat Sri Akal,
Thank you for visiting AapnaPunjab online. I am confident
that once you learn about Aapna Punjab's initiatives to fight social
injustice, poverty and the drug menace in Punjab, you will want to join
me, and many others like yourself, in "making a difference" in the lives of needy Punjabis.
Since early 2004, my name has been synonymous with the arrest of the
notorious Nihang Ajit Singh Poohla.
Getting Nihang Poohla arrested was a difficult and dangerous task. In
the beginning, everyone I approached; from senior police officials to
politicians, all advised me that
standing up against Poohla was a futile and suicidal undertaking. Everyone
argued that Poohla was openly hand-in-glove with the police and some
politicians, and confronting him would be foolish and suicidal. I disagreed.
I gave up my comfortable retirement lifestyle in Chandigarh and moved
to my village in Pahuwind (District Amritsar) to begin the arduous task
of getting Nihang Poohla behind bars. After an extremely hard fought
battle, I was ultimately successful.
However, the time I spent with
the villagers, I became aware of the dismal social, political
and economic conditions that existed there. With no one stepping up
to help the common villager, I decided to take on that challenge. It was in that spirit that I started
this grass roots initiative, Aapna Punjab in early 2005 . Now I need YOUR help in making Aapna Punjab successful; in truly "Making a
Difference" to the lives of needy Punjabis.
I would also like to take this opportunity to address an important issue,
namely the "trust factor". Unfortunately, there have been some dishonest people running NGOs in the pretext of collecting money,
only to use it for their own personal use. Because of a few bad apples,
people have become distrustful of NGOs. I want to give you
all my personal guarantee that I will run Aapna Punjab in
the utmost transparent and ethical manner -
because like you, I honestly want to "make a difference". And we will back this pleadge by delivering "results", so that you can judge for yourself, our commitment towards making a difference in the lives of people.
Since our inception in early 2005, we have started an English-medium school (class 1 thru 4) with an initial enrollment of 150 students. Each year we will add a class. Sixteen welfare centers for women with over 500 women enrolled are now functional. A computer training lab has also been started. A major grass-roots campaign has been started to fight the drugs/AIDS menace in the Majha region. On the social front, cases include LandGrab Case, Exposing MLA in UDBS scam, Poor Taxi Driver, Exposing Govt., SGPC accountability, Dalit widow, and many more.
I encourage everyone to browse through this website to read more about
Aapna Punjab's continuing efforts to fight poverty, social injustice and the drugs/AIDS
problem in Punjab and remind you, that you too, can help in "making
a difference" in the lives of thousands of Punjabis by supporting
the efforts of Aapna Punjab.
And please subscribe to our mailing list so that we can keep you informed of our upcoming events and share the
latest news via our newsletters (e.g. Issue1, Issue2, Issue3, Issue4).
Thank you again,
Col. G.S. Sandhu (retd.)
Chairman, Aapna Punjab and
Majha Ex-Servicemen Human Rights Front
chairman@aapnapunjab.org
Mobile: (+91) 9876169922
Last updated: August 2006
