Tier Two · Walking Alongside

Friends & Allies.

For young people of any tradition, or none, who recognise the value of the Sikhiyas posture and wish to walk alongside in shared programmes. Friends are not asked to become Sikh. They are asked to honour the rooted-and-universal posture, and to bring their own roots forward in equal measure.

I. The Principle

The Sikhiyas threefold welcome is built on a working conviction: that the most useful conversation between traditions is not the one in which everyone tries to sound the same, but the one in which each party arrives more rooted, not less. We want young Christians who are deeply Christian. Young Muslims who are deeply Muslim. Young Hindus who are deeply Hindu, young Buddhists who are deeply Buddhist, young Jains, Bahá'ís, Zoroastrians, Jews, indigenous-tradition practitioners, secular humanists — each rooted in the lineage they carry, walking with us in the work that all our lineages call us to.

The Friends & Allies tier exists for that walking-alongside. It is not a half-membership or a junior membership or a probationary membership. It is its own thing, with its own dignity, asked to do its own version of the practice. At Pangat, we all sit at one level — and the welcome at Tier Two is unconditional in the room.

II. What A Friend Is Asked To Do

Three commitments distinguish a Sikhiyas Friend from someone who has simply wandered into a meeting once or twice. None of them requires becoming Sikh.

1. Honour The Sikhi Centring

Sikhiyas is, unmistakably, a Sikh-tradition movement. Our programmes are anchored in Gurbani, framed by the daily disciplines of Naam Japo, Kirat Karo, and Vand Chhako, and oriented by the ethic of Sarbat da Bhala. A Friend joining a Sikhiyas study circle is not joining a generic interfaith forum; they are joining a Sikh space that has welcomed them in. The first commitment is to honour that — to learn the texts and concepts on their own terms, to participate in Ardas and Gurdwara Sangat respectfully (without being expected to perform belief one does not hold), and to bring genuine curiosity about what the tradition is saying rather than treating it as raw material for one's own conclusions.

2. Bring Your Own Roots Forward

The harder commitment, and the one Friends sometimes find unexpected. We are not interested in young people who arrive having vacated their own tradition. A Sikhiyas Friend is asked, actively, to bring their own roots forward — to know what their tradition asks of them, to practice it in their own life, and to be ready to articulate it in the room when relevant. The reciprocity is real: when a Sikhiyas study circle reads Bhagat Ravidas alongside a Friend's Christian or Buddhist reading on the same theme, the Friend is expected to be the practitioner of that other tradition in the room, not its tourist.

If you are uncertain about your own roots — many young people in many traditions are — that is a genuinely good place from which to come, and the work of finding them is part of the practice. We do not require fluency. We do require the orientation toward one's own lineage rather than away from it.

3. Honour The Reciprocity Discipline

Sikhiyas Friends and the Sikhiyas they walk with operate under a written reciprocity discipline: when invited into our space, you bring your own roots forward; when we are invited into yours, we bring ours forward in the same way. This is the working architecture of the GlobalPEACE network, and it is the architecture of Friends & Allies engagement at the personal level too. Friends who go on to convene shared programmes with Sikhiyas are routinely invited into the convener gatherings of their own home tradition's youth movement to host us in turn.

Underneath all three commitments is the same principle that runs through the rest of Sikhiyas: the Friend role is entrusted, not possessed. The standing we offer within Sikhiyas is authored by the institution and the tradition; it is held by you carefully for the season of your engagement, and returned cleanly when that engagement ends. Friends are not asked to be Sikh, but they are asked to honour the entrusted nature of the Friend tier — the same way Sikhiyasis honour theirs, and partner movements honour their own. The fuller statement of this principle is on the home page and in operational form on the Seva Placements page.

Friends & Allies engagement may end in either of two ways: by the Friend's own choice, at any time, without consequence; or by institutional withdrawal in the rare circumstances where safeguarding, established financial misconduct, or sustained material harm to the work or fellow participants makes continued engagement inappropriate. Institutional withdrawal follows the same review architecture as for Sikhiyasi membership and the Chardi Kala Award — Independent Ombudsperson, Patron, external reviewer, written finding by panel consensus. The grounds do not include disagreement with leadership, public criticism, divergence in life path, or personal-life choices in the Friend's own private contexts. Full architecture is on the Chardi Kala Award page.

III. What A Friend Is Not Asked To Do

This list is at least as important as the previous one. We have heard, from young people approaching Sikhiyas, the questions that often hold them back. The honest answers:

• Friends are not asked to keep kesh, wear a dastaar, or adopt any other Sikh practice or symbol of identity.
• Friends are not asked to take any Sikh ceremony or initiation. Amrit Sanchar is not on the table for a Friend.
• Friends are not asked to accept Sikh theological claims, recite Sikh prayer as personal devotion, or perform belief they do not hold.
• Friends are not asked to disavow their own tradition, hide its symbols, or downplay its significance in their lives.
• Friends are not a recruitment pipeline for full Sikhiyasi membership. Some Friends do, in time, find their way to declared Tier One membership; many do not, and we treat both as equally good outcomes of an honest engagement.
• Friends are not required to take vegetarian meals at Langar beyond the Langar itself, or to follow any Sikh dietary practice in the rest of their lives. Langar is a shared meal in a shared space; what each of us eats outside Langar is between each of us and our own tradition.

IV. Programmes Open To Friends

Friends are eligible to engage with most of the Sikhiyas programme architecture, with one structural exception (Disaster Response, see below).

• Study CirclesOpen to Friends. Most circles welcome a Friend's presence as a deepening of the conversation. See the Study Circles page.
• Seva PlacementsOpen to Friends through the Solidarity Scholarship pathway, which provides funded placement participation for non-Sikh youth from underrepresented communities. Self-funded Friend placements are also available on a case-by-case basis.
• International ExchangesOpen to Friends, particularly the GlobalPEACE-direction exchanges where Friends often bring the partner-movement perspective into a Sikhiyas cohort.
• Ecological StewardshipOpen to Friends. One of the most accessible Friends-to-Sikhiyas walking-alongside pathways, and one of the most productive.
• Skills & LivelihoodsOpen to Friends across all three streams — vocational training, incubation, and livelihood pathways.
• Disaster ResponseNot currently open to Friends in the deployable-responder stream. Friends with relevant professional backgrounds may engage with this programme through their own institutional capacity, alongside Sikhiyas-deployed units, but not as Sikhiyas-deployed responders themselves. See the Disaster Response page for the rationale.

V. Registration

Becoming a Sikhiyas Friend is light-touch by design. You do not need to make a public declaration, take a pledge, or commit to a fixed practice. The registration is administrative — it lets your regional coordinator route you to the right local circle or programme — rather than initiatory.

To register as a Friend, write a single email to hello@sikhiyas.org with the subject line Friends & Allies registration, including:

1. Your name, age, and country of residence;
2. Your home tradition (Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Bahá'í, Jewish, Zoroastrian, indigenous, secular, agnostic, exploring, or whatever language fits your honest situation);
3. One paragraph on what brings you to Sikhiyas and what kind of walking-alongside you are imagining;
4. The Sikhiyas programmes that interest you most.

Within fourteen working days you will receive a written reply with your registered Friend status, the name of your regional coordinator, the local circles and programmes available to you, and an invitation to the next online Friends gathering. There is no fee, no waiting period, and no formal acceptance ceremony. The relationship begins quietly and grows over time, the way good relationships do.

VI. The Friends Gathering

Once a year, in early autumn, Sikhiyas convenes a global online gathering specifically for registered Friends & Allies — alongside the wider annual Sikhiyas Sangat. The gathering is a half-day session in which Friends meet each other (often for the first time), share where their walking-alongside has taken them in the past year, and shape the Friends-track agenda for the year to come.

The gathering is convened by a Friend, not by the Sikhiyas Directors — typically a senior Friend who has been registered for at least two years. This is deliberate. The Friends & Allies tier should not be administered by the Sikhiyas leadership as if Friends were a programme to be managed. It should be co-stewarded by Friends themselves, with Sikhiyas providing the institutional table.

VII. If You Are Not Sure

Some young people read this page and recognise themselves immediately. Some read it and feel that "Friend" is exactly right. Some are not sure whether they want to be a Friend, a full Sikhiyasi (if they are Sikh), or simply a one-off attendee at a study circle they have heard about.

If you are not sure, the working suggestion is: come to one or two events first, without registering. Most local study circles host an open meeting once per term where prospective members and Friends can attend without commitment. Most regional convenings have a small open-attendance window. Many Sikhiyas placements offer half-day visits to prospective applicants. Decide after, not before. The relationships that begin in honest hesitation tend to last longer than the ones that begin in performed certainty.

VIII. A Word On The Distinction From Tier One

Tier One — Sikhiyasi membership in the full sense — is for those who are taking on Sikh identity, sincerely, even if they were not raised within one. The full unpacking is on the Become a Sikhiyasi page. The distinction from Tier Two is not about depth of engagement, seriousness of commitment, or quality of practice. Many Friends engage with the Sikhiyas programme architecture more deeply than many declared Sikhiyasis. The distinction is, simply, about which tradition the practitioner is rooted in.

If you are non-Sikh and wish to engage seriously with Sikhiyas, Tier Two is the right home. If, after a longer engagement, you find yourself wanting to take on Sikh identity — that is its own decision, taken with your own family and Sangat, on its own timeline, and not something to discuss in your first conversation with us. We will not encourage it from this side. We will receive it, with full welcome, if and when it arrives in your own time.

IX. The Wider Constellation

Sikhiyas Friends are part of a wider GlobalPEACE constellation — the network of constituent partners through which different traditions offer their treasuries into the common pool. A Sikhiyas Friend who is Christian is, often, also a participant or affiliate in a Christian youth movement that itself is a constituent partner of GlobalPEACE. The same applies for Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, indigenous-tradition, and secular-humanist Friends. The constellation lets each of us be authentic in our own tradition while doing shared work that none of our traditions could do alone.

For Friends who arrive without an existing connection to a youth movement in their home tradition, the regional coordinator can — where appropriate, and only on request — route an introduction to the relevant GlobalPEACE constituent. This is not evangelism for someone else's tradition. It is the institutional equivalent of saying: your roots matter, and there are people doing the careful work of your tradition who would welcome your presence too.