iCare Consultation - First Ever South Asian Christian Counselors Consultation
- By Sam George
- Published 09/22/2008
Sam George
Sam George is the Executive Director of PARIVAR International - a non-profit initiative to address the needs of youth and families of Asian Indian origin in North America and to the Asian Indian community worldwide. Parivar means family in many Indian languages. Sam George also serves as one of the founding directors of Urban India Ministries
www.UrbanIndia.org Sam George and his wife, Mary have spoken at premarital and family events in many countries. They are parents of two boys and make their home in the northern suburbs of Chicago. Sam is the author of the book “Understanding the Coconut Generation: Ministry to the Americanized Asian Indians." Check out this website www.CoconutGeneration.com Coconut (brown on the outside, white on the inside) is a metaphor for the Americanized Asian Indians. Sam George can be reached at sam@coconutgeneration.com
It was a momentous gathering. For the first time ever, South Asian Christian Counselors came from all across United States and Canada to Chicago to talk about our community issues. Over the last weekend, we had a consultation of Social workers, counselors, clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, lay counselors, pastors, community leaders and theologians. See www.iCareCounseling.net
The consultation was organized by Parivar in patnership with Agape Intl. It was intended at identifying caregivers within Asian Indian community in North America. So we focussed on networking, sharing and learning from each other. Besides plenary talks by Dr. T.V. Thomas and Dr. Paul Meier, we had 14 topical seminars, 2 devotional talks and heartfelt worship sessions lead by Abe Philip.
I just went through all the event evaluations and it was exhilirating to learn how caregivers realized that they are not alone. Often caregiving is a lonely job and finding others who have similar vision is very encouraging. Learning from other caregivers about specific community issues can make us more effective in what we do everyday. Most of what we heard cannot be found anywhere in any books or conferences.
The consultation also lead to the formation of an informal network of South Asian Christian caregivers - iCare Network. Many suggestions were made about futue plans for iCare. Some of the proceedings and discussion at the consultation will be compiled and made available for others soon. Visit icare web site in future for details.
Do you care for Indian American community? Join iCare…. because God cares!
