Forum September 2023 (A): WC4HK’s stakeholder survey findings

WC4HK serves to help coordinate the UK’s welcoming efforts across civil society, communities, business, education and government, and capacity and capability building for the welcoming groups. In the view of this, we surveyed the organisations engaged in welcoming Hong Kongers between July and August 2023 to understand more about priority issues, factors that enable and constrain effective welcoming, and the needs of organisations delivering welcoming work, and to enhance the understanding amongst the network, as well as for WC4HK to shape our future services. 

The survey findings were shared in the first forum this September. Joyce, our WC4HK’s programme director, briefed the findings to the groups. These cover the focus activities of the organisations, organisation structure, their long term sustainability of projects, as well as the support organisations would like to receive from us. Stakeholders organisations participated in the survey include those currently or previously supported by DLUHC or SMPs, and those with other funding sources.

The findings hope to serve as a start of the conversation to share about the challenges and needs of the network - encourage participants to share their experience and observations and to find a way that we can further support each other. In the second part of the forum, we are honoured to have Hei Chow of UK Welcomes Refugees (UK Welcomes Hong Kongers project) and Shanthini Shanmugaguru of Migrant Advocacy Service to speak in the forum. They shared their works and experience, challenges and suggestions to other welcoming organisations.

Hei talked about the work of UK Welcomes Hong Kongers project including developing small groups and potential leaders, in response to the need of the BN(O) Hong Kongers. He also pointed out that an on-going needs assessment is crucial. With the increase in the community's population, he observed diverse needs of support from the community depending on various demographic characteristics such as age and the length of time since moving to the UK.

Shanthini talked about her experience and observation in running the support service for the Hong Kongers. She also advised on various challenges that the welcoming organisations may commonly encounter. These include collaboration with local libraries when they struggle to find an affordable venue for events, building solid relationships with trustees for organisation’s sustainability and recruiting Hong Konger as volunteers to help on bilingual communications.

The group then had a great discussion with many insightful suggestions. Many agree on the importance of a platform to exchange information, share resources and discuss possible collaboration among the welcoming organisations. Some good connections were also made among the participants for collaboration in the forum. To further support the welcoming network, we are happy to include a short session for welcoming groups to talk about their works or updated information from the next forum.