Next weekend will be the Vancouver Premiere of a documentary film created by an American Sikh woman about the widows of men killed in the 1984 Delhi (India) pogroms.

As you may know, after the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31st, 1984, corrupt officials in the Delhi government, army and police collaborated with hired criminals to massacre thousands of Sikhs. In total, 4000 Sikh men were killed while many thousands of women were raped or beaten.

Currently many of these women, who have received little support and no justice from the government or authorities in the past 24 years, are living in a small development in Delhi locally known as “The Widow Colony” which is an area with poor living conditions and poor prospects for the children growing up there.

The women try to earn what they can by working at a local centre built by a charity organization. The film, also called “The Widow Colony,” showcases their struggles and raises awareness of the obstacles the children are facing as they have grown up without their father or grandfather or brother.

The film producer and director are husband and wife and they are working together on a lot of issues to help the impoverished and oppressed people of India. An active group of local youth are working to help them as much as possible while they’re here in Vancouver to make sure the film showings are sold out, and more importantly that a lot of awareness is created about the issues and how to help those suffering people.

Please check out the film website at The Widow Colony.com, and you can purchase tickets for the film by calling 778.840.4289 or 778.319.1699. They’re $10 and a portion of the proceeds will go to Sach Productions to help them produce more awareness of the issues faced by the oppressed and/or impoverished people in India.