Volunteer graduates head out west to support development in rural areas
2024-11-21 China Daily Editor：Li Yan
Program has given youth experiences, opportunities for more than 20 years
For 22-year-old Guo Chao, taking some time out from his arts degree in Hunan province has given him the opportunity to contribute to a far-off rural community as one of the nation's dedicated young volunteers.
When signing up for the Communist Youth League volunteering program, Guo had little idea that in just a short while he'd be in the tiny town of Santanghu on China's border with Mongolia in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
He'd also have little idea that one of his first tasks in the town in the region's Hami prefecture, would be slicing peppers.
"After being transferred to the town in late July, my peers and I spent a whole month chopping hot peppers for the local villagers," said Guo, who added that the elderly residents treated their new guests as if they were their grandchildren.
One of Santanghu's specialties is hot peppers, but for many of the elderly residents the time-consuming work of picking them, chopping them open and drying them has become a difficult task.
That's where the young volunteers can step in and try to make their lives a little easier.
"We all wore protective gloves but our fingers still got pepper burns after the juices seeped through. But the sense of achievement I felt after seeing the villagers hanging their hot peppers out to dry and then selling them at a good price was far more than I had imagined.
"Cutting those peppers made me see things in a more down-to-earth way. In the past I'd dreamed of doing something 'earth-shattering' in my life, but I've realized now that there are no noble or humble jobs, and we can all contribute in our own way," he added.
Creating vitality
Guo is among the 43,000 newly recruited volunteers this year under a State-level program that aims to foster vitality in some of China's lesser-developed grassroots areas such as Xinjiang and the Xizang autonomous region as well as Guizhou and Sichuan provinces.
Most of these locations are in western China, giving it the name "Xibu Jihua", or "Westward Project".
The bumper number of volunteers this year comes in the wake of some 30,000 last year and 36,700 in 2022, according to the Communist Youth League of China.
Since 2003, the program run by the youth league, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, has signed up college graduates and postgraduate students to volunteer in grassroots positions in education, healthcare, agriculture and civil services for one to three years.
The program aims to encourage young people with good educational backgrounds to volunteer and enable others to share the benefits of social advancement. It also enables the younger generation to gain a stronger sense of social responsibility and learn new working skills to foster more sound and sustainable socioeconomic development.
Over 540,000 college graduates and postgraduate students have signed up over the past 21 years to perform voluntary services in 2,000-plus counties, cities or districts, injecting new life and ideas into the nation's rural areas.
Those who sign up for the program receive free accommodation and a living allowance, which is usually around 3,000 yuan to 4,000 yuan ($417 to $556) per month. The volunteers also earn extra credit for future civil service or postgraduate admission exams.
This year in Hami prefecture, there were 614 positions available for volunteers, an increase of 128 percent from last year, according to the prefecture's youth league.
Happy-go-lucky Jia Ao, 22, who is also volunteering in Santanghu, has gained over 10 kilograms in weight since taking up his post in July, claiming the mouthwatering food and family atmosphere as being "a little bit too irresistible".
"I'm just an average guy with no superpower. Maybe I won't settle down here for the rest of my life, but I hope the happiness and the vitality of us young people can inspire and encourage the local people," he said.
Gui Kexin and his friend Yang Xiaolong are both 23 and new graduates from Tianjin Normal University. They've been serving as volunteer teachers at a junior high school in Hami prefecture.
"It's a novel experience for me, as I doubt I'd ever get the chance to work as a teacher in Xinjiang if I hadn't joined the program," said Gui, who admitted it took him some time to adapt to his new role as a geography teacher after arriving in July.
Yang, who teaches mathematics at the school, said that he would have regretted it if he hadn't signed up for the program. "I was preparing for the postgraduate admission examination before making up my mind to join the campaign. I was vacillating about my decision for a whole week before I got my admission to Xinjiang, and I told myself that my life will not have infinite possibilities if I don't take a step to explore, so here I am."
With the volunteer services, Gui and Yang will qualify for postgraduate recommendation at Tianjin Normal University and will be back on campus next year.
Lyu Xueheng suspended his postgraduate study at Shanghai Tech University to put his talent for computer science to good use as a volunteer in Hami.
He is now involved in developing a WeChat mini program focusing on agricultural cold storage in the prefecture.
"Hami is the origin of delicious cantaloupes, and there have been challenges in keeping them fresh. I'm very pleased that what I'm doing will help the local farmers better store and transport their cantaloupes after the WeChat mini program goes live," he said, adding that he is also planning to help out with developing the use of artificial intelligence to monitor wind turbines in Hami.
Extension of love and hope
The contributions and passion that the volunteers bring to less-developed areas are not always a fleeting experience, with many of them having chosen to stay permanently in the places where they'd volunteered.
According to Hami's youth league, the prefecture has welcomed 2,723 graduate volunteers in the past 21 years, and about 590 of them landed jobs in Xinjiang after finishing at their posts. Out of the 590, some 410 have remained in Hami.
Han Zhiyong, 31, from Henan province, has gone from being a volunteer at a Hami health center from 2016 to 2019 to a respected and experienced doctor in the community.
His diligence and talent in performing traditional Chinese medicine treatment gained him a reputation during his voluntary service period. In 2021, he was authorized by the Hami Second People's Hospital to set up a pediatrics outpatient department in one of its branch hospitals with a focus on traditional Chinese medicine.
Han's department has proved exceedingly popular, with patient visits increasing from 100 per month when it opened in December 2021 to over 1,000 per month today.
"It's given me a very strong sense of happiness and achievement doing this work. Every time I see a child recover and see how grateful their parents are, I thank myself for deciding to stay in Hami," he said.
Yan Jiqing and her husband also chose to settle down in Hami after they both finished their volunteering in the prefecture in 2022.
She said that the program had offered her different life experiences to most people and as a result, there have been more career possibilities. "I'm now a civil servant in the prefecture's Barkol Kazak autonomous county and my husband is a teacher in Hami. I've gotten to know many young volunteers over the years and I've seen passion in all of them," she said.
Yan said that some young people may be at a loss about their career direction after graduating college, and so the volunteer program can provide an opportunity to get out into the real world and gain more experience. "I will certainly encourage my children to take part in the program if they ever get the chance," she said.
Companies in Hami prefecture have cottoned on to the benefits of having graduates volunteer in the area, with many attempting to lure them to stay with competitive offers of employment.
Wang Zhenhe, 26, from Henan province, started working at Hami's Yiwu Guanghui Mining Co, shortly after finishing his three-year volunteering stint in Xinjiang.
"I gained valuable work experience during my volunteering period, and gained a strong love for the region," Wang said. "I think Xinjiang can offer me a much greater opportunity for career development, so I didn't hesitate to accept the job offer when it came."
Duan Xuan, an official at Guanghui Coal Cleaning Refining Co, said that the company welcomes young people to consider local opportunities after they finish their time as volunteers, saying that the period they spend volunteering locally gains them valuable knowledge and experience.
Liu Kai, from Xinjiang's youth league, said that the volunteers have turned the region into a better place by contributing their own strengths and youthful vitality. He hopes that more young people can take part in the volunteer program in the future, especially in positions in grassroots healthcare and industrial development, so that more people from outside of the region can get to know the real Xinjiang.
