The “Social Inclusion Community Arts Project” (SIP) is a Hong Kong territory wide initiative, that aims at building mutual respect among Hong Kong citizens, the ethnic minorities and new immigrants through the arts. The Project provides challenges for students to practice what they learnt in tertiary education and preparing themselves as socially engaged emerging leaders.
SIP was held between September 2012 to July 2013, presentations performed in various public areas for free. It reached out to more than 230,000 participants/ audiences that includes: primary, secondary and tertiary students, the general public, ethnic minorities and new immigrants in Hong Kong.
The project took place in two phases. Phase 1 was in the late 2012. The students were gathering background information of the ethnic minorities and new immigrant people through face-to-face interviews, workshops and other methods, to understand the background and cultural characteristic of the target group. The arts workshop was in November and the Multi-Cultural Carnival was held in December. The 2nd phase started in February 2013, involving arts training, rehearsal, production, school tour, performance, exhibition, carnivals, allowing the citizens of Hong Kong to experience culture and unique skills of arts of ethnic minority and new immigrant groups. In order to enhance the participation of the people in Hong Kong, the project also included a “Social Inclusion Photography Competition”, and “Social Inclusion Documentary Competition”. The project hosted the “Social Inclusion 134 Arts Booth” in the Lunar New Year Fair in the Victoria Park in Causeway bay in Hong Kong.
