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Ladies and gentlemen,
Good Morning. Entrusted by the China National Committee for IYV 2001
and the Central Committee of Communist Youth League of China, I am going
to brief you on the development of volunteering service in China.
At the end of 1993, the Central Communist Youth League initiated and
implemented the China Youth Volunteer Action. According to incomplete
statistics, more than 80 million young people have provided volunteer
services of over 4.1 billion hours in the last eight years. Volunteering
service is dominated by youth volunteers in China now.
The Chinese government attaches great importance to volunteering service.
President Jiang Zemin wrote the inscription "China Youth Volunteer
" at the end of 1997, and made an important instruction to youth
volunteers in early 2000. Other Chinese top officials also attach great
importance to volunteering service. Publicity Department of CCCPC, the
Central office of the Steering Committee for Moral-building,CCCPC, Ministry
of Personnel, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Civil
Affairs, Ministry of Science and Technology and many other departments
have also offered their support through various means to this great undertaking.
Over the past years, the CYL Central Committee has been encouraging youth
volunteers to participate actively in the volunteering services, and the
followings are our main accomplishments:
I. Youth Volunteers Poverty-Alleviation Relay Project
This project has been carried out since 1996 to organize young volunteers
to go to poor areas to provide a six months to two year service in basic
education, health care, the extension of agriculture technology and many
others fields. The young volunteers are recruited among the general public
and they relay the process so as to sustain this effort. Over the past
five years, about 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities
in China have implemented this plan. Among the 200 thousand volunteers
registered, 6810 were selected to aid as many as 160 poor counties. The
beneficiary regions have been extended to the 12 provinces, autonomous
regions and municipalities in the western part of China. The assistance
mainly involving mainly the fields of teaching, medicine and health, the
assistance was carried out in the following patterns: transprovincial
cooperation and developed areas supporting less developed areas in the
same province. The newly recruited 3,200 volunteers would be dispatched
very soon to serve in the poverty-stricken areas in the Midwest. Besides,
nearly 1 million on-holiday college students have launched a variety of
short-term projects, popularizing knowledge in the fields of culture,
science and technology and hygiene, etc., in the poor countryside.
II. Youth Volunteers Community Development Project
This project involves mainly three aspects: first, "one helps one"
youth volunteering service was initiated from early 1994. Acting as go-betweens,
many young volunteer's organizations help each young volunteer or young
volunteer's service team identity a poverty-stricken family to provide
them with regular service. So far, there have been more than 2.5 million
"one-helps one" teams. Second, college and middle school students'
volunteers have started services for community development since 1996.
Making use of their spare time, college and middle school students come
deep into the community to provide the local residents with various professional
services free of charge. Many university students also take some positions
in the neighborhood committees, propagandizing education, science and
technology, and culture for the local residents. Third, Young Volunteers'
Community Service Stations were set up in 1995, and now there are as many
as 24,000 service stations in the whole country, which are basic organizations
for community youth volunteers, responsible for organizing and coordinating
volunteer service activities at grass roots level.
III. Save the Mother River -- Youth Volunteers Green Work camp Project
With "work, exchange and study" as its theme, this propjet was
initiated in June 1999. Setting up many green action bases, this project
organized young volunteers to carry out some environmental protection
service, such as planting trees, fathering deserts, decontaminating polluted
water, and removing white rubbish. At present, the environmental protection
projects in Fengning of Hebei and Dalinoer of Inner-Mongolia. Other projects
will also be carried in execution successively in Wanjiazhai of Shanxi
Province, Guang'an - Deng Xiaoping's former residence in Sichuan Province,
Nanxijiang and Taizhou of Zhejiang Province, Yanji of Jilin Province.
In addition, many volunteering service actions for environmental protection
such as planting trees, removing illegal posters and retrieving used battery,
etc. were widely carried out.
IV. Providing volunteer service actively for large-scale social activities
In recent years, millions of Chinese youth volunteers have been providing
service of high quality for the fourth World Women Conference, Shanghai
Fortune Forum annual meeting, Kunming World Horticulture Fair, and APEC
meeting. Now, more than 40,000 Rainbow Volunteers are serving the 21st
Universiade. And we are also engaged in preparing volunteer services for
the Olympic Games in 2008. It has been now an universal practice nationwide
to mobilize youth volunteers to serve for events of large scale.
V. Develop extensively public service.
Young volunteers often visit service bases such as homes for the aged,
welfare homes, orphan asylums, recovery centers, etc., providing the aged,
orphans, paralyzed, with living attendance, medical treatment and health
protection, entertainment, etc. They often go to communities to repair
household electrical appliances, propagandize law information, give training
courses on network, and provide entertainment performance. You can also
find many young volunteering narrators in memorials, museums, exhibition
centers and science and technology centers. Besides, in facing great disasters
such as flood, earthquake, young volunteers play the role of commando
in helping the displaced people rebuild their homes.
VI. Participation actively in international exchange on volunteering
service.
Over the past years, China Youth Volunteers Association has developed
good relationship with some international and regional volunteer organizations
like the Coordinating Commission of International Volunteer Services and
the European Volunteers Union, etc. Thousands of people have been sent
to Europe and the South- East Asian countries for study tour and participation
in volunteer service events. At the same time, volunteers from more than
10 countries like Japan, Singapore and Korea have been mobilized to come
to China to participate in activities such as environmental control, poverty
alleviation and community development. International exchanges of volunteering
services have become an important channel for international cooperation.
VII. Strengthen the management of youth volunteers organization
In order to promote the development of youth volunteer service in China,
China Youth Volunteers Association was founded officially on Dec. 5, 1994,
which is the first nationwide public organization engaged wholly in volunteering
service in China. Later, 35 provincial associations were set up successively.
The recruitment, training, deployment, evaluation and awarding system
of young volunteers has been gradually well shaped. Furthermore, People's
Congress in Guangdong, Shandong, and Nanjing carried through regulations
on youth volunteering service. Fujian, Henan, etc. have also taken volunteering
service into legislation programming schedule. All this has promoted the
legislation progress for China's volunteering service.
We will, under the coordination of China National Committee for IYV 2001,
organize series of activities concerning with IYV, including the 2001
International Conference on Volunteering. At the same time, we will follow
such a train of thought as "government supporting, Volunteers undertaking
and operation socialized " in strengthening project construction,
organizational building and volunteering team construction, promoting
the volunteerism of dedication, fraternal love, mutual help and progress,
and upgrading the great cause of youth volunteering service in the new
century.
Thanks!
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