Sikhs in the US city of Seattle have raised USD 150,000 for a national awareness campaign about their community and Sikhism in the wake of a number of attacks on community members in the country.
The National Sikh Campaign (NSC) is planning to run a historic, presidential-style TV Ad campaign for Sikhs that will educate Americans about the Sikh identity and Sikhism.
The campaign is working with well-known media firm, AKPD, founded by David Axelrod, former senior advisor to the US President and Hillary Clinton's former Chief Strategist, Geoff Garin to fundamentally change the way Sikhs are perceived in America.
"The amount raised by the campaign has set the record for the largest fundraiser for the Seattle Sikh community," said Inderpal Singh, coordinator of NSC's team in Seattle.
Rajwant Singh, the NSC's senior adviser and chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, said, Sikhs across the nation are responding positively to this effort.
"They have participated in many outreach efforts at the local level but they all realise that the community needs massive national exposure. We are confident that ads on social media and local TV channels will fill that gap," he said.
"A survey of Americans who watched these ads has shown that 65 per cent of them will develop warm and positive feelings towards Sikhs," Singh added.
A 47-year-old Sikh gas station owner was shot dead in the US city of Newark this month.
An elderly Sikh-American man was brutally assaulted and left with severe facial injuries by an assailant in September last year.
In 2012, a gunman walked into a Gurudwara and shot and killed six innocent Sikh worshippers in Oak Creek, Wisconsin
