The B.C. government has awarded the Indus Media Foundation a one-time grant of $248,500 to share South Asian heritage through exhibition displays and learning tools intended for B.C. schools and community spaces. Indus Media Foundation, run by Steven Purewal, previously received funding from the federal Conservative government for their project ‘Duty, Honour & Izzat – The Call to Flanders Fields,’ which commemorates the contribution of the Indian army to the First World War.
During the war, Punjabi soldiers were fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with Canadians and suffered enormous losses. The new funding will help the Indus Media Foundation expand its existing display exhibit and create learning tools and teacher resources that can be shared in classrooms throughout the province. The contributions of the South Asian communities to B.C. are part of British Columbia’s new K-12 curriculum, which will be fully implemented by the 2018-19 school year.