Social workers enrich lives of hutong inhabitants

Residents of Beijing's old alleyway neighborhoods, known as hutong, lead more convenient and colorful lives in the wake of efforts to improve community management in recent years.

Fan Siqi, a 21-year-old Beijinger, received a red notebook on her first day as a social worker in the Lianhuasi residential community in the Zhongcang subdistrict of Tongzhou.

"All of my colleagues have these notebooks. All the difficulties and requests of Lianhuasi community residents are written down in them," Fan said. "They record the details of people's needs. Some of the problems have been solved and the solutions have also been recorded, while some are not solved yet. Social workers check in from time to time, to find the best way to solve local problems."

Gao Yanhui, Party leader of the community, said experienced social workers have recorded the conditions of every resident aged above 80 in their notebooks, in order to provide efficient assistance and service when needed.

"As social workers, we treat residents with warm hearts and great patience, which has gained us trust and respect," she said. "We complete the community management mechanism, which has greatly improved efficiency."

In Lianhuasi community, there are 16 hutong with more than 5,000 households.

There are many practical difficulties faced by the community's management. Both the floating population and senior population are high in Lianhuasi and the hutong suffer from outdated construction.

To better serve local residents and improve living conditions in the area, every hutong has two "hutong masters" who are in charge of collecting information about people's needs and act as bridges between social workers and residents.

Gao Chongyan, one of the masters, has recorded the information of an 80-year-old man who lives alone, as well as the phone numbers of his family members.

Gao checks on the man every day to see if there is anything he needs and then sends text messages to his family.

Whenever residents have needs, they inform the masters or the social workers.

In the past, some parents struggled to find care for their kids after school while they were still at work.

Gao looked into a number of families who needed help and contacted residents who were able to offer child care services.

He found that several families could offer their yards for the kids to do their homework or art projects after school. Some retired teachers who live in the community also offered to oversee and stay with the kids after school.

"We call these yards 'yards with warmth' because they are the result of people helping each other," Gao said. "We've also enacted a similar scheme for the elderly, providing activities such as reading and handicrafts, all free of charge."

Ju Zhentong, a 64-year-old resident who is a handicraft professional, has turned his yard into a culture station to display his art.

"Any residents who want to experience or learn how to make art like this is welcome and I love teaching," he said. "Our social workers have done a great job of making our lives easier and better. I want to contribute, too."