LGBTQ+ charity celebrates inclusive holiday parties

Alex Sangha knows firsthand about not feeling welcome around family during the holidays.

The founder of Sher Vancouver, a charity supporting the local South Asian and wider ethnic LGBTQ+ community, opens his home at Christmas to host a holiday party for people feeling alienated from their families.

“There’s a lot of people who are alone on Christmas. They don’t have any family. They’ve been rejected. They’ve been disowned. Some people are starving,” Sangha said. “We consider Sher Vancouver to be a family and we don’t want people to be alone, especially during this festive season and during Christmas.”

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He says for the past 15 years, he and others have come together to share a hot meal, open presents, sing songs, pray and make New Year’s resolutions.

Upwards of 50 people attend the celebration each year, Sangha says. Sher Vancouver relies on fundraising, grants and donations to keep the event and the charity going.

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Sher Vancouver was born out of Sangha’s desire to create a safe space for all. He was inspired by his own personal experiences, but also from what he was seeing within the wider community.

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“There was a number of high-profile suicides in the community,” he said. “We wanted people to feel like they had support and they had friends and they weren’t alone.”

He says Christmas is an especially critical time for his organization as the sense of joy can fade with social expectations, on members on the LGBTQ+ community.

“There’s a lot of pressure in our community for people to get married, to have children. So, if you are gay and you’re coming out in that culture, in that society. How do you fit into that stereotype? How do you fit into that norm?” he said, adding he feels there is a lack of education and discussion about the LGBTQ+ community.

“For them, they think we are choosing this lifestyle. They think that gay people are intentionally going against their families to shame their families to shame, their community too.”