Ever feel that you want to get in touch with other South Asians and make a difference? Want to get involved within the community as well as on university/college campus? Are you the outgoing type of person who likes to take part in events as well as go to formals and cultural shows? Then you should consider joining South Asian Alliance. SAA started 10 years ago and has focused on providing South Asian events not only for South Asian people but for others as well. At their events you will hear different types of music and will get the vibe of different cultures. Sitting down with Naveet Nanwa, Generation Next got the insight of how SAA works at McMaster University, “What SAA really is, is an umbrella of University organizations which started off with just three universities; York University, University of Toronto – Scarborough Campus, and University of Toronto – Mississauga campus” .  Even though the name of this organization includes the words “South Asian”, there is more to it than those two words, “South Asian Alliance is presented in a broader scale, our model is “be the change”, we want to make sure there is no discrimination being experienced by anyone”, says Naveet. With SAA expanding over the years, it now includes over 7 universities.

Every SAA has their own way of expressing their values, at McMaster they are done through events. On an annual basis, all seven universities get together for the yearly SAA culture show, as well as for formals that occur throughout the year with all SAA universities participating, “The amount of events varies amongst campuses, at McMaster we try to do two a month so that ends up being sixteen in a school year”.

McMaster holds a charity poker night where the students are gambling for charity, as Naveet tells us “if you are gambling for charity the concept is different, we hold a huge poker tournament at the university pub and the university throws in a prize as well so it works out evenly, for the charity as well as the students”.  Last year, Naveet and his team chose ASAAP as their charity since they feel that “people are not educated and sex is a taboo topic that no one is going to be open about it”. Another successful event is ‘Sambosas and success,’ “At this event we get past students who are upper year students or who are pursuing their MBAS or other professions and we get them to come and give academic advice to the students”. “A lot of South Asian students feel that they need to be Doctors and Lawyers only in order to be successful but with our Sambosas and success event we called individuals who were pursuing individuals to go to med school but then saw other options and took that route instead. We took this approach because we wanted to show students that there are more things that you can do with your degree and Doctors and Lawyers are not the only professions out there”. Other than the events that SAA holds at McMaster itself, Naveet tells us how “what SAA is original known for are the two big formals which we hold every year one is in November and one is in February”.

In order to be a part of SAA schools have to take their own approach like Naveet and his school did. “If interested the University students have to approach SAA and say that their school can represent SAA and then we put them on a one year grace period, what this includes is we put them on our event flyers and if we feel that school pulls in a large amount of people to our events then we know that they are worth joining the club”. “A lot of South Asians tend to stay in their own circle and not see the world outside, but what they do not realize is that it takes nothing to be a part of SAA and be a member if you are interested then you purchase a membership card and you are an automatic member”. The membership only costs $5 and it gives you discount to many SAA events even including the formal. There are rules and aspects that you have to abide as being an SAA member, you have to make sure to not be involved with promoters but you must be there for your students and your members and there are many more aspects involved with the constitution.

Author: Kiran Takrani