A Very Caring Family

These Delhi-based brothers and their families work long days to help those who need it most

- Diane Peters

EACH MORNING AT 6 a.m., even on weekends, Kamaljeet Singh, 57, is up and out of the house. He starts by spending three hours helping distribute food to nearly two dozen drop-off locations across Delhi, and then checks on the numerous facilities run by the volunteer organization he leads with his brother, Premjit. The organization, Veerji Ka Dera ('dear brother's sacred space'), was founded in 1989 by their father, Trilokchan Singh.

"He was charismatic and a very selfless man," says Kamaljeet of his father, who died in 2010. A social worker who practised seva, or 'selfless service, a key element of the Sikh religion, Trilokchan wanted to do more to help people. In the 1980s, he began organizing volunteers to help him clean gurudwaras— Sikh temples.