Happy Lantern Birthday to our rebranded National Support Centre!
On Friday 26th February members of the UKFCP community and beyond joined together to celebrate the Lantern Festival, marking the final day of the traditional Chinese New Year celebrations with a virtual event that commemorated all of the hard work volunteer members have contributed since the start of 2021. Again, we wish to thank everyone who was able to attend the event.
Below are some quotes directly from our Outreach Team Leader Alicia, outlining a summary of some of our community care work:
“In February 2020, our national support centre was born with help from Scottish Chinese Professionals and the student committee of Young Chinese Professionals. 2 months later in April, it expanded to all parts of the UK, providing virtual support to Chinese communities in response to their needs.”
“By November, as UKFCP focuses primarily on Chinese communities, we decided to expand and rebrand our national support centre as a separate organisation but managed by the same teams--aka us. Having gone through almost 50 name choices with our centre reps, we have decided to give it the name iSEA. i for Internet, interactive, inspiring, inclusive, innovative. iSEA will focus on providing support for Southeast and East Asian communities virtually and UKFCP continues to support Chinese professionals in the country.”
“Over the year, we have introduced and registered Police Scotland’s first national virtual third party reporting centre on hate crime and popularised the concept across the UK. To date, our total number of centre representatives who have volunteered with us has reached over 100 and we continue to grow organically and professionally. We have addressed the needs for communities with Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Deputy Mayor of London, and Provosts of other city councils. We have reached out to over 2000 community members and 100 organisations to offer our support including the Scottish Government and Greater London Authority.”
During the event we had the chance to listen to each of the team leaders share updates on the work they had been carrying out, and what they were hoping to put into effect for the rest of 2021. It takes many people to be able to run the organisation smoothly, and we are incredibly grateful to have such passionate and hard-working volunteers working with us.
After having some fun for the last part of the event, members had the chance to contribute ideas for the iSEA logo, for which some of the team had already put some concept pieces together. We think that it is important that we have input from a range of different people so that we may create a brand that is inclusive and representative of Southeast and East Asians.
We hope to have similar events in the not so distant future and look forward to sharing with you all!
[As published in the UKFCP February newsletter]