Forum October 2022: Friendship and Buddying

When we talk about settling a new life in another country, accommodation, career, education, medical service is always our primary focus.  However, building a supporting network is also essential when we have left our friends and family behind, to reduce the feeling of loneliness and depression when settling in the new environment. 

Many welcoming groups have noticed the needs of the newly arrived Hong Kongers, and carried out some meaningful programmes to help them develop friendship and buddying.  In the October forum, the Welcoming Committee for Hong Kongers (WC4HK) is honoured to have Michael Smith of Wales Strategic Migration Partnership to chair, and Kitty Ng from Colchester Life in the UK CIC and Nigel Paterson from Kings Community Church to share their experiences with our forum members.

Kitty Ng from Colchester Life in the UK CIC shared her experience of holding a befriender programme and parent session in Colchester.  She emphasised the inclusion of locals and the newcomers, and how the locals can share some of their daily experiences with the newly arrived Hong Kongers.  

The project also includes a community cafe, with a local cafe kindly supported the cafe space, the group encouraged the newly arrived Hong Kongers to volunteer at the cafe, serving Hong Kong style food.  The volunteers would not only build relationships among themselves, but also build up friendships with the locals who visit the cafe regularly.  There were quite a number of locals like the food there and visit the cafe often, they also like to go to the cafe to meet people as well. 

Nigel Paterson from Kings Community Church (Southampton) described a more targeted approach to help newcomers build friendships. This consisted of a buddying scheme that matches Hong Kongers with local people, so that they can develop more bonded friendships.

‘We tried to match people carefully, as we wanted to maximise the possibilities for a pair to become friends. We thought that matching people of the same sex and similar age, and with similar interests would have a helpful effect.’ Nigel also reflected that most newly arrived Hong Kongers are very eager to know more about British culture.

The audience also shared their experience during the discussion. One of them talked about having a focus group of Hong Kongers. They would plan the activities they want to have in the community, and try to make them happen. This enhances the sense of belonging of the Hong Kongers to the programmes, and they would be more eager to reach out to others in the community.