The motto, "Treat any elderly person the way you do your
parents, and love any child the way you do your own," from ancient
Chinese sage Confucius, encourages thoughtfulness and volunteerism
in creating a peaceful and harmonious living environment for
all.
Today's International Volunteer Day promotes the same spirit and
extends its meaning in a far broader sense, calling on people to
extend their love, care and wisdom to make life easier for others
by doing whatever they can for nothing in their spare time.
In the good old days, when people had no sense of doing
voluntary work, the slogan "serve the people" was a reminder to all
that they had an obligation to help those in need.
In addition, the traditional concept of regarding it as a
pleasure to assist others helped forge a close relationship between
colleagues and neighbours in a community. Most would help others
when they were in urgent need of aid.
In this sense, there was never a lack of volunteerism among
Chinese , although it is only in recent decades that the modern
concept of volunteerism became known to the public and volunteer
organizations began to sprout up.
There are more than 75,000 volunteer organizations and some 80
million volunteers providing free services for those in need in
different walks of life.
About 1 million university students go to poverty-stricken and
natural-disaster affected rural areas to provide voluntary services
to local residents every summer holiday.
Yet, many more volunteers are needed, and every citizen needs to
develop an awareness of volunteerism so that they will not hesitate
to act when required to extend a helping hand.
The fact that the Beijing Blood Centre called for more
volunteers to donate blood to meet urgent demand in city hospitals
at the weekend suggests the lack of awareness of volunteerism among
some residents.
The ever-deteriorating environment nationwide calls for not only
more severe penalties on polluters but also heavier pressure and
more action from voluntary organizations and volunteers to hold
them to account for discharging untreated sewage or solid
waste.
With an elderly population of about 100 million by the end of
2005 that is expected to reach 400 million by the end of 2040,
community volunteers will be in great demand to help aged people
with their practical needs.
Thousands of volunteers will be recruited for the 2008 Beijing
Olympic Games. This will be an opportunity for the largest group of
volunteers to make their contributions to this world sports event,
and also for the concept of volunteerism to gain further acceptance
among Chinese people.
(China Daily December 5, 2006)