A culturally sensitive residential care facility for the elderly dedicated to Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikhism, is set to come up in Canada’s Surrey.
The ground-breaking ceremony for the Guru Nanak Diversity Village (GNDV) project was held in Surrey on September 5. The 125-bed facility in Cloverdale will be a three-storey building and is estimated to cost 123 million Canadian dollars.
It will be built by Surrey-based non-profit organisation Progressive Intercultural Community Service (PICS) Society in collaboration with British Columbia Housing, and Fraser Health, one of the five regional health authorities in British Columbia under the Ministry of Health.
“The Guru Nanak Diversity Village project has been dedicated to Guru Nanak Dev and is set to be completed by the fall of 2026 when we will start accepting the residents,” Satbir Cheema, PICS Society Chief Executive Officer, told The Indian Express over the phone. “To my knowledge, there has not been any project of this scale in the name of Guru Sahib anywhere in the world,” Cheema added.
While the provincial government of British Columbia will provide financing of 118 million Canadian dollars, the PICS Society, which will operate the facility, will contribute the remaining 5 million dollars through funds raised from the community. Cheema said the Society has provided 2.75 acres of land for the GNDV project and already raised funds of 4.7 million Canadian dollars.
The PICS Society traces its roots to Charanpal Gill, a social activist who passed away in 2021, and his friends who pooled 80 Canadian dollars to register the non-profit organisation. Cheema said it was formed to help new immigrants from South Asia who faced difficulties after arriving in Canada. The Society now has an annual budget of around 22 million Canadian dollars and employs nearly 300 people.
The GNDV project was Gill’s dream. Cheema said that the PICS Society was already running a facility for the elderly in Surrey, offering independent living, assisted living and daycare facilities. “In the last three years, four residents of the existing facility turned 100, three of them in a year. We offer independent apartments and assisted living for the elderly. Apart from that, daycare caters to lonely seniors, providing them meals and support they need along with various activities. The residents celebrate festivals like Eid, Christmas and Gurpurab together. We have had residents of nine nationalities at one time,” said Cheema, who completed his Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering from Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, in 1981.
Cheema, who hails from Bariar village in Gurdaspur district, completed his schooling at Punjab Public School (PPS) Nabha and moved to Canada in 1988 for further studies, earning an MBA from the University of Manitoba. After completing his studies, he returned to Punjab but moved back as an immigrant in 1994 and has been residing there ever since.
Recently, the Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly, Partap Singh Bajwa, Cheema’s senior in PPS Nabha, went to Surrey during his visit to Canada and was all praise for the works being conducted by the Society.
As per PICS Society’s GNDV project overview, there is a growing demand for long-term care facilities that are culturally appropriate. While the GNDV facility will incorporate South-Asian cultural values, traditions, and beliefs into the care environment, it is open to people of all nationalities. The proposed project will also create employment for around 150 people, Cheema said.
Among those who attended the ground-breaking ceremony for the project were Adrian Dix, British Columbia Minister of Health; Ravi Kahlon, Minister of Housing; Brenda Locke, Surrey Mayor; Randeep Sarai, Member of House of Commons of Canada; and five MLAs.
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