LIVERPOOL’S CHINESE FAMILY TREE

THE National Museums Liverpool (NML) are looking to work with people with Chinese heritage to help trace and develop their family trees as part of a project for the new Museum of Liverpool.

Liverpool’s Chinese Family Tree is a programme developed by NML as part of a China, Shanghai and Liverpool exhibition, on display in the Museum of Liverpool in 2011. The Museum of Liverpool due to open on the Pier Head in 2010.

The exhibition will be at the centre of the museum’s Global City gallery, exploring Liverpool’s significant and historic relationship with China focusing on themes such as trade, exchange, informal empire and community building.

NML want to work with 12 members of the public to help them research their Chinese heritage and draw up their family trees. The results will be used on National Museums Liverpool’s website, and six of the participants’ family histories will also go on public display in the special exhibition.

Lizzy Rodgers, community exhibition officer for the Museum of Liverpool said:- “We are looking to work with people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

From people with Chinese ancestry who were born in Liverpool, to people who have moved from China to Liverpool more recently.

Although we’re particularly interested in working with people from or with family in Shanghai, this is not essential.

Starting this summer, the 12 participants will attend about eight sessions where they will take an active role in researching their family histories, and gain free access to documents that could potentially unearth highly interesting stories about their ancestry.”

Participants should be comfortable giving information about themselves and their family history and contributing documents and photos which may go on public display. NML will provide interpretation and translation support throughout the project.

Application forms can be provided in English or Chinese.

For further information or to apply, please contact Lizzy Rodgers via phone on:- 0151 478 4439 or via email, before 22 May 2009.

Celebrating equality for all in Liverpool

SCHOOLS in Liverpool are being recognised for their pioneering and innovative work to promote diversity and support disadvantaged children.  The 2009 Inclusion Awards at Liverpool Town Hall on Wednesday, 6 May 2009, sponsored by 2020 Liverpool, will be attended by more than 250 pupils and staff from schools and children’s centres across the city.  They will be recognised for receiving national, regional and local awards including dyslexia friendly and Inclusion Charter Mark status.  It will include a performance of an anti-bullying poem by 19 year old Michael Lydiate, a pupil at Sandfield Park Special School in Stoneycroft. He has taken part in a project with Liverpool Schools Parliament which has reduced incidences of bullying across the city.  There will be an award for Kingsley Community Primary School in Toxteth - where 85 percent of pupils are from an ethnic background; which has built prayer rooms for Muslim pupils.  And Alsop School in Walton will be praised after becoming one of only 39 schools in the country to win a prestigious Challenge Award from the National Association for Able Children in Education (NACE) for its excellence in helping able, gifted and talented pupils.  Liverpool City Council's executive member for education, Councillor Keith Turner, said:- "Schools are working incredibly hard to make sure that all children are given an equal chance of achieving their full potential, regardless of their background or ability. It is great to see that so many schools are meeting the challenge successfully."

Other projects being showcased include:-

• An African/Samba drumming and singing project at schools around the city, including St Ambrose Catholic Primary in Speke

• Fountains Children’s Centre in Kirkdale for its work with to support children at a homeless hostel

• A language programme for children who don’t have English as a first language

Liverpool City Council's executive director for children, family and adults services, Stuart Smith, said:- "This event showcases the amazing work which is going on in our schools to embrace the inclusion agenda. It is not easy to achieve the standards set by the schools recognised through these awards, and it demonstrates excellent leadership and the high quality of the staff that we have in Liverpool." 

There will also be entertainment from young drummers from St Anne’s Catholic Primary School and songs from High Street Musical by St Patrick’s Primary School. St John Bosco pupils will show off their street dance skills, and a band from De La Salle School will also perform.