close search

Champion London Chinatown's Heritage

Funded on Spacehive 7 May 2021 Delivered 31 August 2022

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

Champion London Chinatown's Heritage

China Exchange By China Exchange

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.

City of Westminster Delivery stage

144
backers
£22,676
raised
funded icon
This project was funded on 07 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.

Gallery

Location City of Westminster

About the space

Custom Location

Council

City of Westminster

How will the money be spent?Total £21,282

Interpretation board production and installation - £10,002 (47%)
Project management and coordination - £2,800 (13%)
History Champion training sessions - £2,725 (13%)
Heritage gathering volunteers training session and volunteer expenses - £2,040 (10%)
Heritage food trail production - £1,677 (8%)
Design for heritage trail materials - £875 (4%)
Archive costs - £120 (1%)
Other - £1,043 (5%)

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
5%
Other Read More
£1,043
  • Spacehive fees
    £658
  • Transaction Fees
    £253
  • VAT
    £132

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 £21,282

Our Volunteer List

We're currently looking for people to offer skills and time to develop our project! Check out the list of what we need below and then use the 'Volunteer' 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.

Volunteer
{{comment.UserName}} Creator Backer
{{comment.Comment}}
{{comment.Comment}}
{{reply.UserName}} Creator Backer
{{reply.Comment}}
{{reply.Comment}}