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Help an HAF Donor with Leukemia...
Help someone with leukemia (a cancer of the bone). This can sometimes only be treated with a bone marrow transplant. Please allow yourself to be screened with a swab of your cheek (no needles or blood), and if your blood type matches, you could potentially save someone's life. Currently, an HAF donor could die of leukemia if a matching donor is not found soon. Visit
http://www.marrow.org/ for places you can go around the world for bone marrow matching. This is particularly important for people of South Asian descent, as ethnicity increases the chances of a match.
Donate Blood. Save a Life.
HAF is now registered with BloodSource as part of the donor club. For anyone in the Northern and Central California regions who donates blood, you can now recognize HAF as your organization affiliation! Mention the Hindu American Foundation or file #5268. For more information, visit www.BloodSource.org or contact Terry Rubstello at BloodSource at (866) 822.5663 ext. 60028.
When is HAF coming to your area?
To see a list of upcoming HAF Awareness Membership Drives, please visit the Events section.
Volunteer with HAF
Community Member Achievements
Congratulations to the Next Gen of Hindu American Leaders: Essay Contest Winners
Take a moment to read four inspiring original essays penned by young Hindu Americans from around the country. These winners of HAF's first NextGen Essay contest articulately expressed the importance of maintaining their Hindu American identity and demonstrated the bright future of the next generation of Hindu American leaders.
HAF for the Community
HAF, The Law & You
The Hindu American Foundation presents a "Know Your Rights" guide specifically tailored to the issues the Hindu American community may face with regard to religious freedom. The guide provides basic, introductory information regarding religious freedom, your rights and duties as citizens or legal residents of the U.S and other resources.
An expanded version of the guide, featuring more comprehensive discussion and legal citations, is also available for download by
clicking here.
In response to the Hindu American Foundation and several other Hindu organizations submitting comments expressing concerns of the inherent Judeo-Christian bias in the list of religious workers and occupations in the R-1 visa program regulations, the U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Service (USCIS) removed the list in the new regulations, leaving open the opportunity for individual temples to describe on their own such religious workers and occupations.
To best serve the needs of the community as well as provide the USCIS some standardized terminology which will increase familiarity with Hindu practice and temple needs, the Hindu American Foundation has created a descriptive list of possible religious worker positions that a Hindu temple in the U.S. may need in order to meet its functions. It is by no means exhaustive, either in terms of potential positions or descriptions and is for instructional purposes only. Please click here to view the full listing of descriptions.
The Hindu American Foundation would like to take the opportunity to update you on the results of rulemaking the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) religious worker and special immigrant programs underwent in late 2006. Rulemaking, as we explained previously, is the process by which federal agencies formulate or amend new regulations. The rulemaking process generally consists of a proposed rule stage, a comment period and final rule stage. As part of the rulemaking process, the agency is required to consider the public comments received on the proposed regulation and if appropriate, incorporate responses to the issues raised by those who submitted comments.
Please click here to view a summary of the major changes.
Diwali & Holi
Please click here to download the Holi 2011 Toolkit.
Please
click here to view the Diwali 2011 site and to download the Diwali Toolkit.
Please click here to view the Diwali 2010 site and to download the Diwali Toolkit.
HAF Receives 2009 Hindu Renaissance Award
On March 28, 2009, HAF became the first organization to receive the annual Hindu Renaissance Award from Hinduism Today magazine. Please click here for the full press release.