Charan Gill
Progressive Intercultural
Community Services
A Wish To Serve The Community Fulfilled!
Photo Credit: A Master Media
By Ray Hudson
Dr. Charan Gill will step down
as the Executive Director of
PICS at the Society’s Annual
General Meeting this June, in
the thirtieth year of its found-
ing by Gill and eight other
people who saw a need for an
organization that would work
“for the community and try to
fulfill the needs of the commu-
nity, whatever the need.”
Over the three decades, PICS has become a vital service
agency in the Lower Mainland providing critical housing pro-
grams, programs to assist new and recent immigrants to
transition to Canada, settlement information, language train-
ing, drug and alcohol counselling, employment programs.
Charan Gill reflected on his and PICS journey in a conversa-
tion with Ray Hudson of Aaarzu Magazine.
RH: How did PICS come about?
CG: Eight friends got together on one of the children’s birth-
days, talking about the community. I said that we needed a
society that will work for the community and try to fulfill the
needs of the Indo-Canadian community, because there was
a need and our community was growing. So everyone put in
$10 each, and that was the start of the society, the Progres-
sive Indo Canadian Services, with $80. That was thirty years
ago in 1987. A year later we decided we wanted to be in-
clusive, not just Indo-Canadian, so we changed the name to
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the Progressive Inter-Cultural Community Services Society.
We started with our first Bingo, got some money and rented
a place in Surrey and started providing services.
I went to Co-op Radio every week for three years, to inform
the community about us and invite them to come and help.
We wanted to educate the community by talking about var-
ious issues and why we needed services dealing with Par-
ent-Child conflicts, support for newcomers. We got some
support from the community and one of the first things we
did was to ask the government to give us money to recognize
the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Komagata Maru. PICS
was the first organization to do that. So we put together a
book “Beyond Komagata Maru, Racism Today” which is out
of print now and another book, “Race Relations Today, His-
tory of Sikhs in BC.”
I was still working as a social worker trying to train people for
culturally appropriate services, in Joan Smallwood’s Minis-
try. I was also the founding President of PICS as well as the
Executive Director but it was suggested that I couldn’t be
President and work for the society, so I stepped down as
President and became Executive Director.
Over the years I took lots of risks. Early on, we decided to
relocate from our office space which was close to the Sur-
rey Foodbank in Whalley. Our windows were broken every
week, so we were forced to move. We bought a building for
$90,000 that was just a shell. I used $50,000 from Bingo
funds as a down payment.