A group of artists – Niranjan Singh "Nanji" Dhaliwal (song writer-lyricist), Sam Sidhu (music director), Gogi Bains (singer), Gurpreet Lucky Sahota (Punjabi journalist) and R. Paul Dhillon (journalist-Editor of the LINK and filmmaker) – have come together to launch an arts-music campaign called TARGETS to bring awareness to youth as they consume music and music videos as their primary ways of getting entertainment and amusement. The Targets team has done their own fundraising to fund this project and welcome others who want to make a contribution to join them in their effort including individuals from the business community, government and non-profit organizations and professional as well as community groups and organizations.

SURREY – The South Asian community has gone through two decades of youth drugs and gang violence that has claimed nearly 200 young Indo-Canadian men. And just when everyone thought that the nightmare of losing young men had finally ended it has reared it’s ugly head again with a spate of shootings that claimed more young South Asian-Indo-Canadian men.

The rise in recent drug-gang activity resulting in increased violence has become an unwanted part of many of our lives. The 44 shooting incidents in Surrey in 2015 and the still rising community violence involving youth in Surrey and Abbotsford highlight the combination of youth and guns as a growing problem in Metro Vancouver. 

There are many South Asian community groups, organizations like KidsPlay and police who are doing their best to bring awareness to youth and provide them with a positive and progressive path.

 It was in a similar spirit to bring awareness and address the drug-gang violence that a group of artists – Niranjan Singh "Nanji" Dhaliwal (song writer-lyricist), Sam Sidhu (music director), Gogi Bains (singer), Gurpreet Lucky Sahota (Punjabi journalist) and R. Paul Dhillon (journalist-Editor of the LINK and filmmaker) – has decided to launch an arts-music campaign called TARGETS to bring awareness to youth as they consume music and music videos as their primary ways of getting entertainment and amusement.

The goal of all parties involved in trying to stop this gang-violence monster that is consuming our youth is to create atmosphere for youth take part in change and to identify behaviours attributed to a dangerous lifestyle in youth, and then to curtail these types of behaviours in our community.

The Targets team has decided to do this through a music video-short film campaign and possibly a PR-Video-Doc follow-up campaign to address the gang violence and create a deep-rooted dialogue among youth to steer them away from this disease.

We will soon be launching the song TARGETS (Nishanney) written by Nanji, music by Sam and sung by Gogi, for which Paul Dhillon will create a music video and short film and possibly a short-Doc. A media campaign, both Punjabi and English, will be devised around the song with the help of journalists Lucky Sahota and Paul Dhillon.

"We feel this is a small contribution that we are making to fighting gang violence in our community and any effort by all groups in fighting this beast is necessary," Targets Team said in a joint statement. "We are excited about the opportunity to make a small difference through our collective love of the arts and music, film and journalism."

The Targets team has done their own fundraising to fund this project and welcome others who want to make a contribution to join them in their effort including individuals from the business community, government and non-profit organizations and professional as well as community groups and organizations.

For more information, please email us at info@branddmedia.ca Or Contact:

Niranjan Singh Dhaliwal – 604-657-7800

Sam Sidhu – 778-846-9726

Gogi Bains – 604-780-4039

Gurpreet Lucky Sahota – 604-598-7771

R. Paul Dhillon – 604-880-3463