Cincinnati, Ohio

The annual Sikh Youth Symposium 2023 regional speech competition organized by the Sikh Youth Alliance of North America (SIANA) was held in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. 26 children from 6 to 23 years of age from Cincinnati, Cleveland and Pittsburgh participated in this regional symposium of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Earlier, local level symposium competitions were conducted in these three cities in the month of April. Sharing this information, the local convener of Cincinnati and Dayton area for the symposium, Sameep Singh Gumtala, said that the winning children of the symposium held at the local level in the three cities in the month of April participate in the regional symposium.

Gumtala said that the participating children are divided into five groups according to their age. Each group is first given a book in the month of January and the participants have to answer three questions from it in the form of a speech in 5 to 7 minutes. This year the first group was given the book "Basic Knowledge of Sikhism, the second "Sikh Sakhis for Youth", the third "The Turban and the fourth "Guru Granth Sahib - Supreme Treasure" from which the questions given to them were given. Speeches were given in response. Group 5 was given the topic "Sikh Life Examination/Sikh Rehit Meryada and Gurbani".

This year, 11 youth from Cincinnati, 10 from Cleveland and 6 from Pittsburgh participated in the regional. The Symposium started and ended with prayer and commandment. The children worked very hard to prepare the speech. All participating children were awarded trophies. A separate special award was also given to children who gave speeches in Punjabi. Jasdeep Singh in Group 1, Trisha Kaur in Group 2, Barnat Kaur in Group 3, Manit Singh in Group 4 and Harjot Kaur in Group 5 came first. These winning children will attend the International Symposium in Charlotte, North Carolina, August 3-6, 2023.

National convener of Sikh Youth Alliance of North America (SIANA) organization. According to Kuldeep Singh, since the year 2000, every year in the month of March-April, these competitions are conducted in different cities of America and Canada, then at the state level and finally in the month of August, inter-national level competitions are conducted, are Winners of state level competitions participate in it. For state-level competitions, the US and Canada are divided into 13 regions, and the winning children from each region advance to the finals. He said that by preparing for the symposium, the children get information about Sikh history and heritage, and they also learn how to write and speak a speech.