Public Services Bolster Youthful Growth

WE don’t want to try to move the public to tears with miserable stories. Doing volunteer work in social services can be enjoyable, relaxed and rewarding!” Xie Feixun, founder of the EGE program and student at Huanan Normal University, explained. “Our program acronym stands for Enrich, Global, and Enlighten, which reflects our original idea.”

Sharing Happiness

Guangzhou is an international metropolis whose 13 million or so population includes a considerable number of foreign students. Young people who have had volunteering experience in their home countries are eager to participate in China’s public services. It gives them the chance to help local people and at the same time learn about Chinese culture and civil life. This is extremely helpful in certain low-income communities where many people live on the minimum living allowance. Families in such communities cannot afford to send their children to foreign language classes, so they have few opportunities to learn about the wider world.

Volunteers with the EGE program pose for a group photo with residents in Jinshazhou community, Guangzhou.

“Our program aims to build a platform for both altruistic foreign students and local residents. EGE Plus means working as volunteer in a foreign country. The plus element is relevant to anyone who feels they can come up with good ideas or propose colorful, interactive events.”

Xie Feixun is strategic director of the original five member team. The research its members carried out in five Guangzhou colleges revealed that there are more than 10,000 overseas students living in the southeastern province. The EGE poster drew responses from 450 eager volunteers, 350 of them foreigners and 100 Chinese.

The EGE program provides a two-way service. Chinese volunteers introduce foreign students to Chinese communities, where they learn traditional Chinese arts like calligraphy, traditional Chinese painting, paper-cutting, Cantonese Opera, and traditional handicrafts like rattan weaving. Foreign volunteers, meanwhile, participate in community services, for instance holding English salons for children in households on subsistence allowances. There they learn oral English, and have classes in creative thinking, so providing them with a broader global vision.