A community centre will this year celebrate four decades of helping people.
A commemorative plaque marks the official opening of The Pagoda of the Hundred Harmonies building by HRH The Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales on April 2, 1982.
Exhibitions and events will celebrate the centre providing services for the Chinese and the wider community.
READ MORE: Chester Zoo monkey batters seagull to death as horrified family looks on
They will work with First Take and Writing on the Wall to produce a film and archive history exhibition of the last 40 years, which will be showcased from October and taken around schools and community centres.
Celebrations begin with a party and people should contact the Pagoda for information if wishing to attend.
Zilan Liao, CEO of Pagoda Arts formed in 2009, told the ECHO : "Since the 1980s the Pagoda has served the community in many ways as the Merseyside Chinese Development Association, which later changed to Chinese Wellbeing".
Their youth orchestra, formed in 1983, performs nationally and overseas was set up by Kui Hsinu Li, a multi-talented musician who teaches all the musical instruments in the orchestra.
Zilan added: "They’ve performed for the Queen more than once, the last time in 2016 when they played at the International Festival for Business." (held in Liverpool's Kings Dock)
Other venues include London’s Royal Albert Hall and Southbank Centre, the Eden Project in Cornwall and in Shanghai - alongside the Philharmonic Orchestra.
Pagoda Arts officially runs the project and the Chinese Youth Orchestra, who use the building as their base, and is made up of five- to 18-year-olds, with up to 50 members.
Pagoda services over the years include; health and wellbeing, immigration, benefits advice and social care for the elderly and more. They also published a Chinese newspaper once a month for about five years in the 1980s.
In 2011 austerity cuts imposed by the coalition government heavily impacted Liverpool’s finances, resulting in the Pagoda facing closure due to staff redundancies.
Fortunately, they negotiated with Liverpool council and were able to keep their services, run mainly by a team of 20 volunteers, and now supported by two full-time and two part-time staff.
Another 100 volunteers help out with bigger events and they continue to provide services as they did before including English classes, after-school study groups for children and Mandarin classes.
Zilan said: "Many Chinese were stranded in the UK due to the Covid lockdowns and we had to help people register to GPs to be eligible to get the vaccine.
"Chinese people came from many parts of the UK (Scotland, London and Southampton) to get help and advice.
"We had to network with other organisations to prevent people from having to travel so far, mostly people from outside of the main city centres who had contacts in Liverpool and heard of our services."
Other issues during lockdown meant children suffered due to a rise in hate crimes and Zilan said: "Children as young as five were being spat at and called names due to Covid. A lot of cases went unreported".
The Pagoda was used on several occasions as a pop-up general vaccination centre during lockdown.
Zilan said: "When they closed due to lockdown this was not good for the Chinese community and after the first lockdown they opened throughout, but with an appointment only system".
For information visit http://pagodaarts.org.uk/
