Celebrating the Lunar New Year with the Ukrainian Saturday School

Bringing our community (and two of our projects) together!

We have recently celebrated two important milestones within the Hong Kong community in the UK and in Sutton. Firstly, the end of January 2023 marked the two year anniversary of the introduction of the BN(O) scheme, to enable Hong Kong citizens to live, work and study in the UK.

In March 2022, Volunteer Centre Sutton was awarded funding by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to set up our Integrating Sutton project to assist and ease the integration of newly arrived Hong Kongers to the London Borough of Sutton. Some highlights from our work feature in this short film by the Welcoming Committee for Hong Kongers

And secondly, 22 January 2023 marked the Lunar New Year, a major celebration in the year for Hong Kongers. We were delighted to welcome a group of our local Hong Kongers to the Ukrainian Saturday School, with whom we're also working closely. This gave over 50 students the opportunity to learn more about Hong Kong traditions and how the Lunar Year is celebrated. 

Thank you to our Hong Kongers for telling us about their traditions, introducing us to their customs, telling us more about celebrating the New Year according to the lunar calendar, and for teaching us how to make incredible traditional decorations.
Thank you to our Ukraine Coordinator Nataliya for making our Hong Kongers feel so welcome.
As Nataliya said: "Living in a multicultural city, we will continue to learn more about different cultures in order to better understand the world around us."
If you would like to find out more about any aspect of our work with these communities in Sutton, please get in touch with our Head of Community Support, Nick Baum on nickbaum@vcsutton.org.uk.
If you are from Hong Kong and would like to join the Integrating Sutton Facebook group run by Volunteer Centre Sutton, you can join here
If you are from Ukraine and would like to join the Ukraine Sutton Facebook group run by Nataliya, you can join hereTo find out more about joining the Ukrainian Saturday School (5+), you can contact them here.
Lunar New Year Ukraine 1 6x4Lunar New Year Ukraine 2 6x4Celebrating the Lunar New Year with the Ukrainian Saturday School 6x4