Our Stories

Year of the Dragon 2024 and the launch of Our Stories: Collecting the oral histories of the Chinese community in Wales.

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Press Release October 2023

Celebrating the Chinese contribution to Wales.

To coincide with a very special year for the Chinese Communities, The Year of the Dragon. The Chinese In Wales Association is running a very exciting community heritage project.

The Chinese In Wales Association has successfully been awarded a £100,000
National Lottery Heritage Fund grant to carry out a Wales-wide oral history project.

The testimonies of multi-generational ethnic Chinese individuals and those with
mixed heritage will be collected along with photographs of interesting items and
documents.

To upskill all those involved, all of the project team and volunteers will be professionally trained by Museum Wales and National Library: Peoples Collection.

The findings of the project and raw material will be uploaded on to the online Peoples Collection and raw material archived within Museum Wales. This means that this invaluable history will live on for future generations.

Speaking about the funding for the Our Stories project, Shirley Au-Yeng, CEO said:

This is an exciting project to work on, I am looking forward to learning about individuals experiences of living in Wales over the years, how experiences and perceptions may have, or may not have changed.”

Shirley Au-Yeung added:

We must reach out to the older generation before it is too late. We have contributed so much to Wales and this history must be recorded and preserved. Friendships, health and fitness, industry, technology, food, fashion, community celebrations have all been influenced by the Chinese community who have lived in Wales for many years.”

Thank you to the National Lottery Heritage Fund and to our Partners: Museum Wales, National Library of Wales People’s Collection, Swansea University for your generosity and support.

If you would like to be part of this exciting project please contact Project Manager, Susan James via email: [email protected] andor ring the office at 01792- 469919.

Our Stories: Collecting the oral histories of the Chinese community in Wales

With heartfelt enthusiasm for the Our Stories project, I am thrilled to witness this vision materialise. Connecting with the older generation is paramount before their invaluable stories fade away. The Chinese community’s profound impact on Wales, shaping friendships, health, education, industry, technology, food, fashion, and community celebrations, deserves to be preserved. I eagerly anticipate immersing myself in the diverse individual experiences of life in Wales, uncovering the evolution of perspectives over the years.”

Mrs. Shirley Au-Yeung, Founder and CEO of CIWA

Amgueddfa Cymru is happy to work in partnership with The Chinese in Wales Association. The oral history gathered will be a valuable addition to the national oral history archive, helping to diversify the collection of personal histories, and ensuring that it is more representative of the diverse communities that live in Wales today.”

Ms Sioned Hughes, Head of Public History and Archaeology

Join the project

We are keen to meet individuals who identify themselves as ethnic Chinese who would like to be interviewed, this includes those with mixed heritage, throughout Wales.

We are also currently looking for professional film makers, photographers and interviewers.

The understanding of Chinese languages is required for the Oral History Interviewer, not the other roles. As part of our remit to upskill community, we are open to offer trainee opportunities for those at the beginning of their career or those who wish to go to the next step of their career.

If you would like to be part of this exciting project please contact Susan James, Project Manager via email: [email protected] and/or ring the office on 01792-469919.

Background information for Press Editors

Background to the Chinese in Wales Association (CIWA)

The Chinese in Wales Association (CIWA) is a charitable organisation that delivers services and creative programmes, to make a positive difference to the lives of ethnic Chinese communities, resident in Wales.

CIWA was set up to meet the changing demographic needs of the Chinese community in Wales; building on the work of the Swansea Chinese Community Coop Centre over the previous 20 years. They deliver social and educational activities and build partnerships to progress better understanding of heritage and culture.

CIWA’s work includes:

Promoting community cohesion, both within the diverse Chinese community and the wider community.

Creating activities that promote the Art, Culture and Heritage of ethnic Chinese communities living in Wales.

Showcasing both Chinese and Welsh culture and heritage to explore and advance cultural exchange between the two communities.

Delivering services to, and representing the Chinese community including neurodiverse and disabled people, children, young people and elderly people to ensure they have the best support for well-being, health and welfare.

Supporting members of the Chinese community facing disadvantage to address the inequalities that they endure; to prevent isolation and enable them to participate fully in society.

CIWA also provides core programmes such as language services in Mandarin, Cantonese and English, alongside advocacy, information service and case referral on local welfare, housing, healthcare, education, employment and training. CIWA was formed to make a positive difference to the lives of Chinese people living in Wales and they design and deliver services and extensive Arts and Cultural Heritage programmes to progress the benefits of a diverse and multicultural society.

Why now?

There is an urgency to capture Chinese elders’ stories before they pass away or become incapable of recounting key lived experience of their extraordinary journeys of migration to Wales. The life stories, images and artefacts that will be collected, are key to telling the social history of the Wales based Chinese communities.

Chinese elders, who survived the pandemic, have come to CIWA to say they now want to tell their stories. Having suffered racism, discrimination and isolation throughout Covid, under a culture of blame and victimisation; there was a realisation that very little information was available to tell the true Chinese people’s story, limited platforms to showcase the value that Chinese migrants have brought to Wales or visibility of the positive contribution made over the many years of migration.

The Heritage project is timed for completion in June 2024, so that it can be showcased on Chinese Heritage Day and within Chinese Year of the Dragon 2024, a year of significant importance to Chinese communities.

About the National Lottery Heritage Fund

As the largest dedicated funder of the UK’s heritage, The National Lottery Heritage Fund’s vision is for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the future as set out in our strategic plan, Heritage 2033.

Over the next ten years, we aim to invest £3.6billion raised for good causes by National Lottery players to bring about benefits for people, places and the natural environment.

We help protect, transform and share the things from the past that people care about, from popular museums and historic places, our natural environment and fragile species, to the languages and cultural traditions that celebrate who we are.

We are passionate about heritage and committed to driving innovation and collaboration to make a positive difference to people’s lives today, while leaving a lasting legacy for future generations to enjoy.

Follow @HeritageFundCYM on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and use #NationalLotteryHeritageFund www.heritagefund.org.uk/wales