Newcastle's first Friendship Festival has taken place with 250 people coming together to welcome new arrivals from Hong Kong.
This comes as over 160,000 people from Hong Kong have arrived in the UK following the introduction of the British National Overseas visa scheme.
Refugees and asylum seekers from other countries were also invited to join in with the event in Gosforth last weekend, following the success of the 15 previous Friendship Festivals that have happened around the UK.
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Every child that attended the event received an exclusive book entitled 'Welcome to the UK', which was written especially for children from Hong Kong to help them adjust to life here.
Andrew Wong, from the North East Hongkongers Club, has spoken about the event and how great it has been to see the collaboration between people from the UK and Hong Kong.
"We are very happy to be able to meet so many newly-arrived Hongkongers at the Newcastle Friendship Festival today, and to have many Hongkonger civic organisations and British NGOs participating and introducing their work to the Hongkongers.
"The Friendship Festival has provided a very good platform for people to get to know each other and their work, and for connecting people together," he said.
Adrian Leung, the Regional Outreach Coordinator for Hongkongers in Britain said: "The aim of the event was to let Hongkongers recently relocated in the North East chat and make new friends, as well as collecting useful information from different service providers.
"Citizen's Advice, JET, North East Ambulance, Migrant Help, police and fire services, HK Aid and Barnardo's were all invited to take part and showcase their works with booths so as to let Hongkongers know the services they provided, while children enjoyed face-painting and balloons.
"Participants also enjoyed delicious Hong Kong food, egg tarts, curry fish balls, Hong Kong-style French toasts, sesame balls and milk tea."
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