"We've all been living here for about ten or 11 years, some of us old, some new, but we've always wanted to have a temple," Raj Singh said.

Mr Singh is one of the founding members of Dhan Shri Guru Nanak Incorporated, the association the five friends have started in order to bring their dream of a local place to pray to life.

In 2018 the group started a monthly religious meeting for local Sikhs to come together but COVID put a halt to the events last year.

"As part of a Sikhism principle we served free food at the end of the prayers for everyone," Mr Singh said. "Punjabis are the number two community in Ballarat in the 2016 census, but many Sikhs moved here after that."

The group formed the association as the first step in their plans and are pouring their own money into their dream so far. They've built a website in case the community would like to donate.

"We need someone who can help and guide us to buy some land," said acting president of the association, Gurmej Singh. "We're happy to take a loan, pay a mortgage ourselves and start it off but we need some guidance on how to get permission from the council."

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Gurmej Singh said that a Sikh temple is not just a place to worship, but in ancient times was always a school as well. He hopes to bring this back and use the Ballarat temple to teach the children in his community traditional forms of martial arts as well as how to speak Punjabi.

"We're here forever, Ballarat is our home, so we need a place to worship," he said.

"The nearest place to us currently is 45 minutes away in Plumpton."

The group are worried that their culture will be lost if they don't have a place to congregate and pass on their cultural knowledge.

"Everybody here, we will all be dying here. That's in my will, half of my ashes will go in Lake Wendouree," Mr Singh said.

The temple will have doors on all four sides, which will always be open to show that are all welcome inside.

"Our religion is open arms, we see people and help them," treasurer Neeraj Gugal said.

"This will be the place where anyone can come and have a meal for free."

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