MORE than £190,000 of Lottery funding is to be used to improve opportunities for the county’s Chinese Chinese community.

The Big Lottery Fund has given the money to the Oxfordshire Chinese Community and Advice Centre to support its English, IT and bilingual training scheme.

Many members of the Chinese community work in the catering trade, because of poor English language skills.

The new bilingual training project at the centre, in Princes Street, East Oxford, aims to help Chinese people pick up new skills and help them find work outside restaurants and take aways.

Fook-Sang Wai, the chairman of the centre, said: “This grant will enable us to provide unique training, complete with interpretation and translation, to help learners overcome the language barrier inhibiting access to training.”

The £190,688 grant has come from the Lottery’s Reaching Communities programme.

It will include computer training and pay for a bilingual training adviser.

Andy Ng, owner of the Sun Wah Chinese takeaway, in Nightingale Place, Bicester, said the project was a good idea.

He said: “I used to send my staff to English translation classes in Bicester about five years ago, but they were cancelled, because the Government stopped funding them. It was a real shame.”

Jackie Guo, a sales assistant at the Jing Jing Oriental food store, in Cowley Road, Oxford, said: “A lot of older people would benefit from the language scheme, because the younger people tend to have English lessons.”

Mr Wai added: “The difference we intend to make to learners’ lives is that they will be able to build on a foundation which enables them to gain access to mainstream training opportunities, have better qualifications and chances in life as well as an improved quality of life.”

Big Lottery Fund spokes-man Sophie Robinson said: “The grant for the Oxfordshire Chinese Community and Advice Centre has been funded because of the real improvement it will bring to the community and the better chances in life it will give people.”

Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent on tickets by the public has gone to good causes.

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