Henan Volunteers: Stories of Volunteers

According to their motto - “Love, truth, and service to community” - Xingyang Volunteer Federation works to enhance people’s sense of social responsibility through providing them various volunteer opportunities. The office is in Xingyang, Henan province.    

What we knew about volunteers are some people offering their time to do something good. For years, we found more and more volunteers around us. They help people with different ways. They are happy to provide helps to needy persons. They are from different sectors with different ages, but they have one thing in common—kind and helpful. I would like to tell 2 stories about volunteers that moved me a lot.

We all know an important activity in our annual meeting is to raise money for a 16-year-old girl with leukemia. Her name is Zhang Xue. We learned from Xiang Qi, a volunteer, that they family had sold everything for her illness. Life is so difficult for them. They do not have money to buy food and 3 meals became a big problem for the family. They cannot eat full every day. I was wondering how a family cannot eat full, Xiang Qi and I decided to visit the family.

Zhang Xue is 16, but she got leukemia unfortunately. She is optimistic though she has been tortured by the illness. As everyone knows the treatment for leukemia is expensive. For the family is poor, the treatment has to be limited. The main treatment is chemotherapy, but it has to spend about 28000RMB for once. Expenses for 8 times of treatment have nowhere to find. On January 27, 2015, Zhang Xue has to take chemotherapy again. Xiang Qi has been helping her to coordinate money for her treatment. He has raised 13000RMB. He contacted media and reported the situation of the girl. About 20000RMB has been raised. However, his wife got cerebral infarction and was admitted by hospital not long ago. Even so, he was busy for raising money for Zhang Xue. He went to hospital for many times during Zhang Xue was in hospital. He never complained and what he has done or said was respectable. He is humble and does everything he can to help people.

Volunteers at a fundraising event to help a young girl with leukemia

Likewise, the story of another volunteer moved me a lot. 

He is an old volunteer and I knew him in Xingyang Volunteers’ Group online, which is not only a virtual group, but has its physical organization—Xingyang Volunteer Federation. He is an office worker, but he has been caring the development of Xingyang Volunteer Federation for years. He doesn’t have much spare time for voluntary services, but he serves as a volunteer with what he is good at. In our federation, the way he participates in is to identify and boycott fake information. 

In the group, people will forward information that is not real. When he saw, he would come out and asked the one who sent the message to verify the information. He is always serious and spoke with tough tone, so people were not happy and thought he is too strict. Some people thought they forward message for no harm. Why they had been questioned or criticized. I did not understand either, so I asked him, “people just forward something. Why are you so serious about it? Even if it was fake, so what? They did these out of good purpose.” He reminded me, “to forward or release unverified message can be harmful. The credibility of the society will be dropped. Many kind people will waste their time, manpower and energy. To verify message seemed important, but the person who does this job can be unpopular. I did not blame for their kind purpose. I hope they can be more rational as volunteers so as to reduce aimless. With these, voluntary services will be sustainable and volunteers will become serious and responsible.” After his explanation and my observations, I finally understood his intentions. For years, he insisted on being a hero behind the curtain. To protect the volunteers’ kindness, he did great job to pass on positive energy in Xingyang Volunteer Federation. 

Not long ago, Zhang Xue’s situation was exposed by the press. He contacted me and said, “there’s a lot of children as Zhang Xue who need help. However, it’s not enough to rely on someone. There must be a team or people in the society to help them. Chinese Lunar New Year is coming and we manage to give them a nice festival.” I was moved by his sincerity. When I told the idea to the chief of Federation, the board agreed to raise money to help Zhang Xue. He did not show much excitement or happiness. He devoted to call more people to be involved into the team for help. A few days ago, he told me Zhang Xue was referred to 153 hospital. He asked me to tell Xiang Qi do not let people to visit Zhang Xue, in case infection, and he also said we should hide the face of Zhang Xue in the photos that are going to be released. He’s very considerate and did everything he can for the child. By the way he did not allow me to speak of him too much here, for he did not want people to remember him for this, on the contrary, he thought his contributions were less and insignificant compared with other volunteers. I decided to share with all of you for what he has done as a volunteer, which I hope can help us to improve ourselves and enhance more positive energies. His online nickname is Da Xue Wu Hen. 

They are 2 examples I knew among volunteers. In our Federation, there are too many excellent volunteers and I believe we will be improving day by day. We will learn from excellent volunteers and contribute our parts by participating more voluntary activities. 

Original article written by Yan Wu, translated by Maggie Li, edited by Yanyan Zhang