Hotline to connect residents with volunteers

By next year, the municipal civil affairs authorities hope that residents in Beijing will be able to find volunteers they need simply through making a call, an official revealed on Wednesday.

"Our city government has set up a hotline to provide community-based services for residents. Next year it will have a new function - to connect volunteers with people who need services," said Liu Yan, an official from the Beijing Civil Affair's Bureau in charge of volunteer affairs.

The hotline Liu referred to is "96156", which has provided consultancy for 200 types of community-based services since 2002.

"We're thinking about asking operators to take note of people's needs and publish the information on zyz.96156.org.cn (a portal dedicated for sharing voluntary services in the capital's communities) and then ask volunteers in the same or nearby communities to help," he said.

Liu made the remarks to China Daily on the sidelines of an awards ceremony to celebrate the 27th International Volunteer Day, which fell on Wednesday.

A total of 100 people were honored as "star volunteers" and 100 volunteer organizations as "star organizations" at the ceremony.

"We'll strive to encourage more people to volunteer and promote volunteerism to become a lifestyle and ensure voluntary services can meet people's actual needs," said Li Wanjun, the bureau's Party chief, who delivered the keynote speech during the ceremony at the Beijing Theater.

To achieve those goals, the bureau will provide more training for volunteers and perfect the recording system for volunteers' work, he said.

To date, there are around 1 million registered volunteers and more than 14,000 volunteer organizations in communities across the capital, Li said.

Some 610,000 volunteers have contributed more than 29 million hours this year to help others, according to statistics.

Li Qing, 60, said she felt "honored" to be called a volunteer. "Helping others is helping myself because it makes me feel happy, especially when I can do something for the seniors who live alone in our neighborhood," she said, adding that she often helps them clean and cook in her spare time.

Zhang Zhiyuan, who runs a volunteer organization in Beijing's Shunyi district, urged the government to provide financial support for volunteer organizations to evaluate volunteers' work.

"Staff at volunteer organizations are unpaid, but we have realized that it is really time-consuming to keep records of volunteers' work and do other daily management," Zhang said.

Zhang said his organization now has more than 19,000 registered volunteers who help organize cultural events, security patrol, in-door services for the elderly and other work in 83 communities.

hedan@chinadaily.com.cn