The Bhutanese Community of Syracuse (BCS) Inc. celebrated its fifth year of establishment yesterday amidst a big gathering at the auditorium of Franklin Elementary school.
The event formally began with the dance performance by a group of small children who welcomed the guests through their wonderful performance. A short drama on the eviction of the ethnic Nepalis from Bhutan was also staged. Besides, number of other Nepali, Hindi and English songs and dances were presented by different community members as well as some guest performers. Among the guest artistes was Kanchhi Maya Subba, a noted Bhutanese singer who presented two different songs. In the event, BCS awarded the high school graduates with appreciation letters.
The President of BCS, Hari Adhikari Bangaley, addressed the crowd and made a brief presentation of the activities of BCS.
As in the yesteryear’s celebrations, BCS served free food to audiences, and sold t-shirts as a part of its fund raising campaign.
BCS day celebration that attracted over three hundred people was made possible by the tireless effort of the youth wing of BCS.
On the eve of the community day celebration, BCS hosted an hour’s discussion session with the representatives of Association of Bhutanese in America (ABA) and Organization of Bhutanese Communities of America (OBCA).
According Bangaley, the discussion was initiated not to mediate for their unity but to ask them to bring forth a local-level plans and projects.
“We have always felt that organizations like OBCA and ABA have to come together to address the issues of people in different cities, said Bangaley that Bhutanese in different cities are in need of real service. This is not time that we look for their unification but we would like to humbly request them to come together to help our community folks. In this way, they will be working unitedly”.
Prior to the discussion, BCS president also talked to the community members and brought to the light of two organizations different issues like difficulty of obtaining the US citizenship, community set-up in different cities, mental health problems and suicidal cases in the Bhutanese, among others.
Representatives from both the organizations showed immense desire to work together for the betterment of the Bhutanese residing in different places, and further added there will always be a unanimous decision if it is question of assisting our people move ahead.
Chairman of ABA, Biswa Nath Chhetri, appreciated the initiative of BCS and assured that he will start discussing issues with his friends on the possible future projects at the local level.
ABA Chairman also declared that the organization will hold its annual convention in July in Syracuse to be hosted by BCS.
Similarly, Hari Dhakal, a representative of OBCA also endorsed that his organization has always prioritized addressing at the organization’s capacity the problems of the resettled Bhutanese. However, he sincerely appealed to everyone that it has to begin individually.
The discussion between ABA and OBCA,which is the first of its kind, was also attended by the representatives of the Bhutanese Community of Erie, PA and other community members of Syracuse.
Similarly, a small power point presentation highlighting the effects of abusing alcohol and drugs was presented at the eve of the event. The slide show also focused on the misuse of social media like Facebook and its possible consequences on the youths and all Bhutanese at large.
