Wang Jingli

wangjingli0715@163.com

“WHEREVER I wear a red vest, I feel so proud to be part of the volunteering cause,” Francis Kwesi Hagan from Ghana, who became a locally registered volunteer in 2007, said.

In 1989, Shenzhen formed the first volunteer team in China with only 19 members. They launched a youth service hotline, providing psychological counseling and emotional companionship services for youth groups.

Over the years, Shenzhen has been devoted to building itself into a city of volunteers. It now boasts more than 3.51 million volunteers, including  4,387 international volunteers,  according to the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League of China. It means there is a registered volunteer for every five people.

Intl. volunteers

A video showing Hagan helping a local deliveryman who slipped on a wet ground on a rainy day became a hit on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, recently.

In this video, Hagan helped the deliveryman get up from the ground and lifted the delivery vehicle. So far, the video has received over 80,000 likes with over 1,000 comments on Douyin.

Hagan said it was a pleasure to help a brother.

Living in Shenzhen for about 19 years, Hagan sees Shenzhen as his second home irrespective of anything, and he chose to be a volunteer as a way of giving back to Shenzhen through volunteering.

“The beauty of this experience is the joy that you’re serving your neighbors and that’s the richest experience one can ever have, which I count as a blessing,” he said.

“I belong to a family that upholds service as a responsibility and imperative to make sure people around you smile,” Hagan said.

Hagan won the title of the Most Beautiful Expat Volunteer in Shenzhen last year.

Priyasha Sharma from Mumbai, India, is also dedicated to the city’s volunteering services.

Sharma said she has developed a deep sense of attachment and connection with the city after having lived in Shenzhen for almost eight years.

“If I get an opportunity to participate in any volunteering work, I would never miss a chance because helping for a good cause makes others as well as myself feel good. Volunteers are the glue that holds a community together,” Sharma said.

Sharma added she is glad to see that Shenzhen always acknowledges and appreciates its international volunteers.

“I am happy to see the city’s efforts to build a city of volunteers. I would definitely love to volunteer more in the future.”

Shenzhen launched a selection of the most beautiful expat volunteers in 2022 to promote the volunteering spirit of “dedication, friendship, mutual assistance and progress,” encourage foreigners to participate in more volunteer service activities, and honor those who contribute to the city’s socioeconomic development.

Volunteer teams

Among some 1,032 volunteers who worak at Metro stations across the city every day is Pi Decai, a 62-year-old who normally serves at Shenzhen North Railway Station.

Pi joined Shenzhen Metro Volunteer Federation in 2012 when the federation was set up, the country’s first of its kind. It now has over 38,000 volunteers, whose volunteer hours have reached 5.76 million in total.

Targeting people with disabilities, the federation launched a charity project to make their Metro ride worry-free.

Local universities are also remarkable in the volunteering cause. The Southern University of Science and Technology set up a volunteer federation in 2017 and has cooperated with over 10 institutions to conduct volunteering activities.

Supporting services

Shenzhen has poured efforts into making volunteer services more professional and let volunteers be fully engaged in social governance.

Shenzhen inaugurated a volunteer school  in November last year.

The school is responsible for the city’s volunteer services training and related research and development projects. It also holds volunteerism and charity culture and services training for young people in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and volunteer-themed photo exhibitions to promote volunteers’ role changes from offering social services to partaking in social governance.

This March, a city-level mangrove wetland protection volunteer team was established to support the protection of mangroves.