The ＂old drifters＂ found their home here! Jinyang Xincun Street Exerts the Best Efficiency of Volunteers

Jinyang Xincun Street is the most populous street in Pudong New Area. As a population-oriented community, Jinyang Xincun Street has a large number of migrants, elderly people, families with difficulties and people who need care.

In such a complicated situation, the construction of volunteer service network has played a great role in community governance. Up to now, there are more than 25,000 registered volunteers in Jinyang, accounting for 15.1% of the permanent population, with 575 teams. Relying on the construction of the street Red Cross Society’s "Boai Home", Jinyang Xincun Street builds a platform for volunteers, enhances their ability and accompanies the growth of the volunteer team.

The "old drifters" found their home here.

Children have married and established their families, but the old people who should enjoy their old age have to leave their hometown and come to a strange city to help their busy children take care of their families and grandchildren … This group of old people has a name of "old drifters".

Oriental Zhiyinyuan in Jinyang Xincun Street is a "double school district", and there are many such elderly and wandering groups in the community. Community staff and Red Cross workers found that these elderly people have almost no chance to come to neighborhood committees except for residence permits, and they never participate in community activities. They generally don’t move in the community except for picking up and dropping off children … Looking at these sad-faced "old drifters", the staff hopes to do something for them.

In 2017, a special "searching for you" appeared in the corridor of the community. It turned out that the neighborhood committee of Oriental Zhiyinyuan built the "Old Piao Post Station". After the notice was posted, it attracted more than 70 "Old Piao" residents in the community to sign up.

The "Laopiao Post Station" starts with social integration, cultural integration and psychological integration to help the "Laopiao" gradually integrate into the community. In order to help them rebuild their life circle, the project explores the deep integration of foreign elderly people and local residents. In view of their language difficulties, the community held a "bosom friend drifting class" to teach these elderly people to learn Shanghai dialect and adjust the difficulty of the course according to the feedback from the students. In view of their difficulties in life, volunteers took them to see the surrounding food markets, banks and hospitals. According to their interests, carry out manual classes, travel, basketball games and other activities. In view of their emotional relationship, jiaozi was organized, including blind date activities for some single elderly people, to encourage them to get out of their homes and join everyone. "We found home here! We are no longer alone in Shanghai. " Wang Laobo, a foreign community resident, said that after participating in the activities, the old people gradually gained confidence and their faces glowed with the brilliance of their youth.

"What more can we do for the community?" The "Lao Piao" who deeply participated in community governance set up the "Lao Piao" Council and began to participate in autonomous meetings such as residents’ representative meetings, community affairs joint meetings, hearings, women’s representative meetings, and gradually integrated into their new lives.

When you give roses to others, the fragrance lingers on your hand.

In addition to the "old drifters", there are a certain number of overseas Chinese and other groups in Jinyang Xincun Street. They cherish the concept of patriotism and fraternity, and also hope to help others and achieve self-growth through public welfare. "Boai Ruishi Port", as another special brand project created by the Red Cross Society of Jinyang Xincun Street, its volunteer team "Love 22" is composed of such a special group of volunteers.

Li Dexuan, the project sponsor, is an overseas Chinese who was born in Taiwan Province and now immigrates to the United States with his family. A few years ago, Li Dexuan took his wife to "settle down" in Jinyang Xincun Street. For Shanghai, the second hometown, Li Dexuan has always wanted to do something meaningful to repay her. In 2014, by chance, Li Dexuan hit it off with several of his friends, and jointly launched "Love No.22" with the Red Cross Society of Jinyang Xincun Street and the service station at the Ruishi Gate of Jinqiao.

The operation mode of "Love 22" is that in January each year, each team member pays a certain amount of money as the fund for helping the poor in that year, and selects families with great difficulties in Jinyang community every year to give short-term or long-term assistance. Over the years, the volunteer team of "Love 22" project has been growing day by day, and has successively sponsored and accompanied nine families in distress in Jinyang area.

Different from simple financial support, "Love 22" not only pays money, but also contributes and shows love. Team members regularly take turns to visit sponsored families, which is not only material encouragement, but also spiritual encouragement and companionship.

Li Peirong’s family is a family supported and accompanied by the team for many years. After working in Shanghai for many years, Li Peirong formed his own family and gave birth to a pair of twin children. A family that should be happy is tottering in the wind and rain because of her husband’s stroke paralysis. "In order to treat my husband, my family’s savings soon ran out, so I had to knock at the door one by one to see if anyone needed to do laundry, cook and clean. I have been biting my teeth for more than ten years. " Li Peirong said. In order to make a living, her two children also entered the society early.

After learning about Li Peirong’s situation, the "Love 22" team was moved by their positive optimism and courage to face setbacks, and immediately paired up for funding. Despite the love and support of the team members, the two children are still diligent and thrifty, study hard and forge ahead, and have successively passed the ideal university.

These two children also repay the society with love. They use their spare time to participate in community volunteers and volunteers many times, and make up lessons for students with difficulties for free. Today, Li Peirong’s son has responded to the call of the country and gloriously became a soldier who defends the country. His daughter Jianrong started her own business and opened a coffee shop after graduation. Li Peirong also walked out of the predicament of her husband’s death and found a new spring in life.

Let the volunteer team play its best role

The distinctive and targeted volunteer projects such as "Laopiao Post Station" and "Boai Ruishi Port" have taken root in Jinyang New Village, which cannot be separated from the construction of the platform behind it and the empowerment of the volunteer team by the Red Cross.

In November 2014, the Jinyang Red Cross Service Station with high quality and high standard was completed, radiating 48 residential Red Cross service stations to carry out humanitarian care activities such as fraternity communication, helping the needy, ambulance training, "three contributions" registration, health service and so on.

For example, behind the "incubation" of the "Old Drift Station" project, the platform role of the Bo ‘ai Zhiyin Pavilion should not be underestimated. In 2015, the Street Red Cross Society promoted the community Red Cross work with the autonomous management of residential areas, joined hands with the Oriental bosom friend residential areas, and built the Boai bosom friend museum. The museum is shaped by four aspects: the propaganda of the Red Cross concept, the action of helping the poor, cherishing life and paying attention to health, and highlighting humanitarian public welfare services. It implements open service and standardized management. The museum has a love room, a book room, a fitness room and a service room, and there are four volunteer teams. It is such a multifunctional bearing space that the activities of the "Old Drift Station" can be carried out smoothly.

Nowadays, there are nearly 20 normalized volunteer projects in Jinyang Xincun Street. Through various forms, the street builds a volunteer service brand belonging to Jinyang, and establishes a set of volunteer service cultural system of Jinyang, thus enhancing the sense of identity of volunteers and encouraging more people to join volunteer service.

In addition to building a platform and "incubating" volunteer projects, Jinyang Xincun Street also pays attention to improving the skill level of volunteers and empowering volunteer teams. In 2020, the street started the "Dandelion Paratrooper Captain" Jinyang Xincun Street Backbone Volunteer Assistance Program, and combined with the daily work of the Red Cross Service Station, successfully recruited 228 volunteers "Dandelion Paratroopers" to train them in the Red Cross cultural communication skills, rescue skills and other empowerment training. Twenty people were selected as "Dandelion Paratroopers Captain Candidates" to participate in the workshop, empowering them to manage their own volunteer team, and guiding them to deeply participate in the publicity, planning, design and activity organization of the Red Cross activities in Jinyang Xincun Street through group workshops.

The effect of the program on volunteers is obvious-during the epidemic in 2020, these "dandelion paratroopers" stood out first. They always pay attention to the needs of the community. When they learned that the forehead temperature guns equipped at the gates of various communities could not work normally due to the cold weather, they set up a WeChat group online at the first time, drew drawings, selected materials, and designed and made warm jackets for the forehead temperature guns. In just three days, they designed and made 146 kinds of forehead temperature jackets, contributing to the epidemic prevention and control in the community. Knowing that the families of the first-line anti-epidemic doctors in Wuhan needed help, the small paratroopers formed a "fraternity support group" to take the initiative to visit Dr. Chen’s parents’ daily life, help them buy necessities and deliver them to their homes. Successfully connected with Volkswagen Transportation (Group) Co., Ltd., and arranged vip special line taxi service to solve the worries of parents going to the hospital for hemodialysis every week.

Editor-in-Chief Zhang Qi

Editor Deng Qingyuan

Internship Editor Yang Linyu

Image source Photo courtesy of Jinyang Xincun Street

Shangguan author: Pudong observation