More than 24,000volunteer service centers have been set up across China, forming a nation wide network of such service, statistics show. Students, teachers, medical and scientific personnel are among the volunteers who participate in the promotion of development and eradication of poverty and many other missions, a delegate told the United Nations General Assembly Wednesday.
A five-year-old poverty eradication program has attracted more than 10,000 volunteers to work in 207 poor counties for a period of six months to two years in basic education, health and public hygiene and the promotion of new technologies, said Shen Guofang, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations. Besides, some one million college and high school students go to poor and disaster-stricken rural areas every summer to carry out volunteer activities, he told a U.N. discussion on "International Year of Volunteers".
The Chinese volunteers are also engaged in community services. Regular one-on-one assistance arrangements have been made for young volunteers to help more than 2.5 million poor families in urban and rural areas, with the old, disabled and orphans benefited.
Over the past two decades, China has worked together with U.N. agencies to carry out volunteer work. the U.N. Volunteers Organization has sent some 200 volunteers to China, who contributed to the work in such fields as education, health, science and technology, environmental protection and poverty alleviation.
On her part, China has sent more than 160 volunteers to more than 30 developing countries to work in projects including agriculture, water conservation and health, Shen said. The U.N. in 1997 proclaimed 2001 the year of volunteers to build on existing networks and seek new areas of advocacy to help organizations and governments boost the impact of volunteers. There are 124 national committees to mark this year's event. Some 5,000 volunteers worldwide are involved in U.N. programs.
(Xinhua News Agency December 05, 2001)
