Bringing Chinese culture to the North Shore: A community-led initiative

By Ben Yu

The Auckland Chinese Families Network Incorporated (ACFN) is a community organisation dedicated to celebrating and sharing Chinese culture – especially with children and families – through inclusive events.

Based on the North Shore, we’ve noticed a significant gap in open-park Chinese cultural events that reflect the diversity of our community. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to experience and participate in Chinese cultural celebrations in welcoming, accessible spaces.

To help fill this gap, we launched the New Zealand Chinese Children Festival at Browns Bay Beach earlier this year. This event was designed to bring families together to enjoy Chinese traditions, performances, and activities in a vibrant outdoor setting.

It was our first time hosting such a large-scale cultural event, and we are proud to say it was a success – thanks in no small part to the incredible support we received from ANCAD.

ANCAD’s guidance and resources were instrumental in helping us bring our vision to life. From providing a support letter for funding applications to helping us align the event with our organisational mission, ANCAD played a key role in our planning process.

They connected us with a strategic advisor who helped us identify potential funding sources and introduced us to other organisations with experience in hosting similar events.

ANCAD also supported us through the practical aspects of event planning – such as navigating council permits and assigning a dedicated advisor who had previously organised community events. This expert helped us identify blind spots and guided our team through each step of the process.

We truly believe that without ANCAD’s support, the New Zealand Chinese Children Festival would not have been possible. Their commitment to empowering grassroots initiatives like ours has made a lasting impact on our community, and we are deeply grateful.

We look forward to continuing our work to bring more Chinese cultural events to the North Shore and to building a stronger, more connected community for all families.