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Champion London Chinatown's Heritage joined: Crowdfund Westminster 3 days ago
Champion London Chinatown's Heritage
Impact data and claims within this report are provided by the project creator and have not been independently verified by Spacehive.
Champion London Chinatown's Heritage
Support Chinatown's history champions in recording, protecting and celebrating the heritage of this special neighbourhood. Play your part in securing and celebrating part of the area's history.
0
backers
£0
pledged of £21,295
26
days left
62%
26 days left!
Pledges will only be charged if the project hits its funding goal of £21,295 by 11 May 2021
Chinatown is a special part of London. We need YOUR support to help secure and celebrate its cultural heritage and display its Chinese and East & South East Asian (ESEA) history for the first time. There are 11 heritage plaques in Chinatown that detail fascinating snippets of history but not one of them mentions the area's cultural connection to the Chinese and ESEA diaspora. We want to change this! The diaspora history of Chinatown is not well documented. We have made steps to change this and your support would allow intangible food heritage to be documented, formally archived and celebrated.
What we'll deliver:
- Design & install two large interpretation boards in Gerrard street
- Train 8 History Champion walking tour guides for our walking tour programme
- Train and engage 12 volunteers to gather food heritage stories from businesses with heritage at risk
- Research and develop a Chinatown food heritage trail documenting and celebrating the intangible food cultural heritage
Why it's a great idea:
This project will: - ensure that East Asian diaspora history is publicly acknowledged in Chinatown for the first time. Yes! The first time! - celebrate cultures and heritage experiences in London's Chinatown, a much loved part of London - build and improve understanding of London Chinatown and the people who shape and are shaped by the area - improve the ways for tourists, visitors and Londoners (all essential visitors for the local businesses) to enjoy this special area - show support and solidarity for the area, the people who run businesses there and who rely on it as a place for cultural connection after anti-Chinese sentiment and increased hate crime towards British East Asian people - build skills and experience in our teams of dedicated volunteers - improve the understanding of intangible food heritage in an iconic part of the capital * We can only make these fantastic benefits happen with your support. Please pledge and help us make this project happen. *
Steps to get it done:
- Write the interpretation board copy in English and Chinese
- Design the interpretation board
- Install the interpretation board on Gerrard street
- Recruit 8 History Champion walking tour guides
- Train 8 History Champion walking tour guides
- Promote upcoming walking tours dates
- Train 12 volunteers to gather heritage from local businesses with heritage at risk
- Gather heritage from local businesses with heritage at risk
- Transcribe and translate heritage interviews
- Research and develop a Chinatown Food Heritage Trail through the material collected by volunteers
- Unveil our Chinatown Food Heritage Trail to the public
- Complete first phase marketing plans for all three public elements of the project
- Archive heritage footage and pictures
In 2018, China Exchange began a project "A summer celebration of Chinatown heritage", supported by Chinatown London (Shaftesbury plc). The project included training tour guides for summer walking tours and developing two history interpretation boards. Planning permission took over a year to secure and subsequently the cost of mounting the boards has risen. We need more guides since our original trained cohort has reduced. And we want to continue our work in documenting Chinatown's history. Supporting this campaign will make positive things happen for Chinatown. Please help in any way that you can.
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1 Pledge worth £251 week ago
20 Pledges worth £6451 week ago
100 people have backed Champion London Chinatown's Heritage !1 week ago
Whoop, 100 people have pledged since fundraising began!
90 people have backed Champion London Chinatown's Heritage !3 weeks ago
Whoop, 90 people have pledged since fundraising began!
90 Backers!3 weeks ago
Brilliant backers Yesterday we hit the 60% funded mark and today we welcomed our 90th backer. There has been a lot of celebratory dancing in our homes in the past 24 hours. When we get to 90%, we may post video evidence! Thank you to each of you for choosing to champion Chinatown's heritage. We wanted to remind you of what your support will make possible and today we're focusing on volunteers. Our project will create 20 new volunteering opportunities in Chinatown. Eight History Champions will be put through their paces as guides to sustain our community-led Chinatown Stories walking tours. As well as welcoming domestic and international tourists, the tours are popular with schools and universities. All tours cover the same themes but each guide personalises their version with the stories that resonate with them making it a unique experience. Each ticket for the tours support the London Chinese Community Centre and the Chinese Information and Advice Centre, two fellow Chinatown charities offering grassroots services. We will also recruit and train 12 volunteers to undertake heritage gathering work focused on food cultural heritage. This careful and detailed work lays foundations for continued work in Chinatown to document and celebrate the unrecorded history of our neighbourhood. China Exchange has been running volunteer programmes since 2018 - we focus on building skills, creating ways to connect with China, Chinese culture and London's Chinatown, and on projects that are made more sustainable through volunteering. These additional 20 volunteering roles will be made possible by the people who join you in Championing Chinatown Heritage. We're seeking support now through community grants and foundations to help give the project a big boost and continuing to make people aware of what we need before 11 May. Remember, we're holding a special virtual Chinatown tour on 24 April where the proceeds will be donated to the project - tell your friends and we'll see you there!
2 people liked Champion London Chinatown's Heritage 3 weeks ago
Anonymous pledged £2803 weeks ago
China Exchange Offline Donations pledged £3001 month ago
75 Pledges worth £2,3181 month ago
How will the money be spent?Total £21,295
Costs Breakdown
This shows how money raised for the project will be spent. These costs have been confirmed by the project's Delivery Manager and verified.
47%
Interpretation board production and installation
£10,002
13%
Project management and coordination
£2,800
13%
History Champion training sessions
£2,725
10%
Heritage gathering volunteers training session and volunteer expenses
£2,040
8%
Heritage food trail production
£1,677
4%
Design for heritage trail materials
£875
1%
Archive costs
£120
Overfunding
This project is enabled for overfunding. If the project hits its funding goal before the end of the campaign period, any extra funds raised will be spent (in order of priority) on:
Total £21,295
Our Wish List
We're currently looking for people to offer skills and stuff to develop our project! Check out the list of what we need below and then use the 'Offer Something' button to the right to get involved.
- Tablets - these help walking tour guides share videos and images. Old and used items suit us well - we just need to be able to show images on them.
- Portrait photography: we would love to take portraits as part of the food heritage archives and of our new team of tour guides. Any help taking beautiful pictures of people much appreciated.
- 12 matching History Champion weatherproof jackets for our volunteers to wear when they are leading tours
Want to help?
Do you have stuff or skills to contribute to this project? Use this tool to offer something to the project creator.
Offer somethingAbout the Project Creator
China Exchange is a UK registered charity that creates opportunities for people to learn more about China, Chinese Culture and London's Chinatown.
We build connection and engagement between people living in the UK and China through accessible activities that value heritage and community and explore contemporary China. Since 2015, China Exchange has programmed festivals, curated exhibitions, led volunteer projects and held over 300 events, to create inclusive and unexpected ways for people living in the UK to understand China, Chinese culture and London’s Chinatown. We've welcomed over 32,000 people to our activities and our youtube channel has had almost 1m views.
Since 2018, we have offered 53 walking tours of Chinatown led by trained History Champion volunteers. These tours give insight into the area's history before and since it became Chinatown, a perspective that many guests have never heard before. We love seeing our tour guests' surprise and hearing their "well, I never knew that" comments. A donation from each ticket sold is made to two fellow Chinatown charities that support Chinese and East Asian diasporara communities. This model helps tourism contribute to the wider needs of the neighbourhood.
In 2019, we pioneered the collection, recording and celebrating of unrecorded stories of people whose lives were shaped and who shaped the history of Chinatown. This formed an exhibition, The Making of Chinatown, which launched at China Exchange and is on a pandemic-postponed tour in 2021. The project was supported by over 40 volunteers who gained new skills, new friends and new experiences through their time with us.
Collecting more stories, installing interpretation boards, launching a Chinatown Food Heritage Trail and developing our walking tours are our 2021 goals for heritage and community.
Project Delivery Manager: China Exchange The Project Delivery Manager takes legal responsibility for receiving and spending the funds raised and ensuring the project is delivered.
Contractor: Fitzpatrick Woolmer Design & Publishing Ltd The team responsible for building or installing the project.