Hello, welcome to Roundtable, where we serve up piping hot debates on the issues that sizzle in China and beyond.
I'm Yohang Lin. Volunteering has always been about people coming together to make a difference.
But how do you make volunteering smarter, faster and more impactful in this digital age?
In China, digital platforms are leading a quiet revolution in volunteer services.
With just a few steps, you can help clean a park, monitor a kid, and or support disaster relief efforts, all guided by a platform that tracks your impact and provides feedback.
In this International Volunteer Day special, let's explore how digital tools are enhancing volunteer services and promoting social good and transforming the way we give back.
For today's show, I'm joined by Lai Ming and Steve Hatherly.
Now grab your virtual compass and follow us to the heart of the discussion.
What happens when volunteering meets high tech?
Picture this. Matching volunteers with opportunities through AI, logging hours with blockchain and creating impact reports in real time.
China's digital volunteer platforms are taking service to a whole new level.
Welcome to Volunteering 2 .0.
This is such a great topic because actually the day 5th of December marks the International Volunteer Day.
And we've seen that the development of volunteer work in China has seen some significant results.
So how about we have we do a quick reality check about the things here in China?
Sure. As of May 2024, China has 236 million registered volunteers, and they come in 1 .3 million groups.
And the total number of hours that they've clocked is in the billions.
I don't have the precise number here, but it's stunning and impressive.
And you mentioned the International Volunteer Day.
The full name of this special day actually is the International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development.
So we volunteer for a purpose, not just do it as a hobby.
Not just helping people out of our good heart?
Well, we achieve economic and social development.
Yes, it's very important.
This has been around for a long time actually.
This observance was mandated by the UN General Assembly back in 1985.
So this isn't something that's new.
Obviously, volunteering has been going on for a long time.
But for the UN, for the General Assembly, it's been since 1985.
And it's a day to celebrate volunteering.
It's a day to remind us that we need to be volunteering with our free time if we do have that time.
And with the advancements in technology, it's made it a lot easier these days for many different people to volunteer.
And I guess we'll get into that a little bit later.
Yes. Actually, there are a lot of different activities and different occasions and different ways to categorize voluntary work.
When I was in, for example, college and university, I actually value voluntary opportunities quite a lot because a lot for instance, there are at least two types.
One is the type that I go to that are some regular voluntary activities that are there all the time.
They collect or they invite volunteers to attend in activities like taking care of the elderly, taking care or teaching kids in relatively less developed places and also taking care of people with disabilities, taking care of animals, straight animals.
Yes, straight animals, straight animals.
So those are like the kind of voluntary work you can take part in.
You find out where are these activities and you go.
And there are the other ones.
For instance, if we are looking at, for example, the Olympics, when the Olympics were held here in Beijing, that was a great opportunity.
And I believe we have a very lucky person.
Yeah. Tell us that story.
A lucky and old person who was around in the year 2008, old enough to volunteer.
And he was fortunate enough to have been allowed and included in the list of volunteers.
And he's addressing himself as the key.
In third person. Stopped confusing the list.
No, stop. Trying to sound modest.
So my job in 2008 started by an interview with the IOC organizing committee.
And we were told that, yes, you've been you pass the interview and you need to go through some trainings.
So even before the real event took place, we were bust around, looking at different venues.
There was no way that I remember all of them.
But we later on were given the details of our job.
And that was to be on standby at the Beijing Hotel, where the IOC committee members were living, residing for during for the duration of the competition.
And what we did was we stood by.
We had one IOC member every day to look after.
What we did was we went to the machine and print and get a printout of the day's event, the matches and events.
And then when the IOC members, some of them are obligated to watch certain events.
It was their obligations.
And then outside of that, they they are free to decide what they want to do during those days.
So what we did was serving as assistance to them and then plan their schedule and book the drivers and stuff.
Pardon me. They needed to be in attendance sometimes, but not all the time.
Well, during office hours, of course.
See, that's the thing you learn through all these very special voluntary opportunities.
And we are talking about, for example, the Olympics, the event celebrating the anniversary of the funding of the People's Republic of China.
We also have, for example, Winter Olympics, Asian Games.
And years ago, not many years ago, several years ago during the fight against the covid pandemic, actually a lot of volunteers were involved.
So I guess there are, again, different types of voluntary work and different opportunities.
And on this special day, we've seen how much voluntary work has helped us in a lot of different ways.
And I think they do deserve a day to celebrate their contribution.
Right. Here in China, celebrations have been held across the country, according to news reports in East China's Nanjing capital city of the coastal Jiangsu Province, which Steve is yet to visit.
The local volunteers association hosted an exhibition slice demonstration at the High Speed railway station in Nanjing.
And they called for more awareness about volunteer work for the youth and the elderly for energy conservation, environment protection and for tourism promotion.
And some volunteer organizations and individual volunteers were honored with an award.
You stand in front of a crowd and somebody gives you an award.
And that was a very memorable moment.
And similar events took place in Chengdu in southwest China, Wuhan in central China and in Shanghai.
All these events happened at locations with a lot of foot traffic, like I mentioned earlier, the railway high speed railway station.
And in some instances, the event took place in a park downtown.
So there's a lot of foot traffic and the popular pedestrian and commercial streets.
Really, really impressive that people are coming out to celebrate the day, because when we think about, you know, volunteering, it's not it's not a national holiday, right?
It's it's not something where we have a day off of work to go out and gather with our friends and families, but still people are getting out there.
And I wanted to talk about this today because and I mentioned this earlier about the connection between technology and volunteering and how it's kind of changed the way that people can volunteer.
One of the big trending things that's happening internationally with volunteering, it's called virtual volunteering.
Have you have you heard of this before?
It's actually happening here in China as well.
Yeah, it's really cool, right?
So virtual volunteering is exactly what the term implies.
You are online instead of being there in person.
And if you're thinking, well, how could you volunteer online?
Well, there's a lot of different ways, as a matter of fact, and there's a lot of different reasons to, you know, a lot of people are too busy with their own lives.
They want to volunteer, but it's difficult to find the hours to do that.
So if possible, they can do that online.
Other people, and I didn't even think about this, they have mobility issues.
They want to give back to the community, but it's not easy for them to get out and about around the streets, taking things like public transportation or even a car.
That can make it a lot easier having the opportunity to do it online.
And it's also a great option for students, right, who are busy with their school schedules.
So that's a good opportunity as well.
I'll give you just a couple of examples, maybe just one example of virtual volunteering.
This is for multilingual, like yourselves, for example.
It's called Tarjimli.
And it's an app where you can be connected to refugees or asylum seekers or immigrants and social workers who need help with translation.
And it doesn't have to be a major event like the Olympics.
It can be as simple as being at the bank if they're trying to open an account in a language that they can't.
So there's lots of chances and there's lots of opportunities.
Yes, actually here in China, I talked a little bit about having this different types of virtual volunteering works in different ways.
We also have an example here.
For instance, the Seven Seas Public Welfare Cloud Support Education Project.
It's actually kind of cute.
It's called Jihai, so we translated it as Seven Seas.
And it's jointly launched in 2021 by the Jihai, or Seven Seas Public Welfare Organization and the Qingdao University Youth Volunteers Association.
I mention this specifically because here our involved are the students, and they would help giving lectures and helping people in relatively remote areas and helping children and giving them online courses.
And at the very beginning, it was basically giving online courses to these kids, tell them how to do certain math or give them an English lesson.
But it soon expands to different types of lectures, including providing, for example, health -related, healthcare -related knowledge, psychological understanding about yourself, how to take care of your mental health as well.
Even students are giving those types of lectures?
Students and teachers in this university.
And also they help not only in that sense, but also they give certain kind of performances online, like singing and dancing, holding a virtual basically gala so that people can enjoy.
That's very lovely.
Was that part of your Olympic experience?
Technology was not as advanced as they are these days.
And we are thankful for that.
Well, they have a similar program in the United States, actually.
It's called Learn to Be, and that's a nonprofit that invites student volunteers to share their math skills or science skills or whatever.
What they do is they provide one -on -one tutoring to other students.
And the students can be as young as five years old, and it helps improve the lives of those kids who find themselves in vulnerable neighborhoods across America.
So again, that's a huge advantage of technology here, is that you don't need to be in the same room with these kids.
You don't even need to be in the same state as a matter of fact.
You can be on the other side of the country and still be volunteering and helping.
Yes. And with this kind of system, you can also invite your friends to be someone who's volunteering, meaning that you can open the kids to basically an entire new area, not only the area that you're familiar with, but you can find the expert, invite them into the voluntary work because they do not have to
be confined with the geography situation and actually being there, their physical beings.
So this is something quite impressive.
And technology can be used in other ways as well.
For instance, we know that in certain communities or in certain groups of people, they have a particular kind of need.
For instance, for children left behind in rural areas, I mean, their parents may have been working in a different city, looking for job opportunities and making money to keep their family fed.
But unfortunately, the parents are not around.
So the kids might need assistance in learning, in a company, in psychological council.
So this is one part of the demand.
And then there's the other group of people, maybe the elderly folks, they need somebody to help them take a bath or do their hair and that kind of thing.
So the needs are many and varied and it's important for whoever that's organizing the volunteer work to know where they're coming from and also to know where help is coming from.
So technology can play a role in coordinating these information to begin with.
Yeah, matching services.
Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, matching services, but also scheduling.
Do you remember, I'm not sure if we were on the show on Roundtable together that day or not, but we talked about volunteer teacher programs in rural communities in China, which is a wonderful thing.
But one of the challenges was when the teacher would travel a long time out to where the student is in the rural community.
And sometimes, these are kids, right?
So sometimes they're taking a nap and sometimes the scheduling wouldn't work out.
So with the help of technology, yeah, it helps from the volunteers side of things, but it also helps logistically with the programs side of things, helping to arrange schedules and more.
We actually have an example here in China in Nanjing, the city of Nanjing as well.
Actually, it has established a city level platform for elderly care services that uses digital algorithms to more efficiently match the supply and demand.
They would even store information exchange and calculation of volunteer time.
So if you volunteer a lot of times, maybe you can pick the kind of, let's say, customer you want to serve.
I'm not really sure about whether or not you can pick.
That's one explanation.
Also in Beijing, you just reminded me of another example, and that is in Beijing.
There are these basketball courts and then perhaps football fields that you can book.
But how do you book it?
Book it with the points that you've earned doing community service.
Having a system to record the hours that you're putting in volunteer work is something that can really bear tangible fruits for those who do, who are interested in sports.
So if you didn't put in the volunteer hours, that means you don't get the points.
And if you don't get the points, that means you can't play at that court probably.
It's a different kind of motivation, isn't it?
Yeah, it's encouraging.
At the same time, with technology, we're going to see that some previous missions or some previous challenges are getting better solutions.
For instance, we see the DoIn Missing Persons Project.
It was launched in February 2016.
It uses the platforms research, technology, user base, and volunteer across the country to help families find missing persons.
Not just DoIn, which is obviously one of the rising platforms.
The existing platforms like Tencent, WeChat, and also Alipay, they are both working on that.
And just earlier this week, I received a package because I bought something online.
And then within the package, there was the picture of a missing child.
And so it's kind of a way to help people get in touch with people in need, so some parents may have lost their children, and they will do anything to get information on where their kids might be.
It's actually very impressive because according to the previous example we talked about, this project has successfully reunited over 20 ,000 families by February 2023.
And since it's used all these different types of location -based push technology and local recommendations, we see it has facilitated reunions after separations lasting as long as 85 years, with the fastest reunion occurring in just 60 seconds, and the ages of those found.
60 seconds. 60 seconds.
Goodness me. Yeah, and the ages of those found range from three months to 101 years old.
So I feel like technology is not only helping on the matching and making side, on the side of helping people from so far away from each other to be able to get connected and help each other, it's also lowering the cost of getting into voluntary work.
For instance, if you see the picture on your phone popping out and you see that person, let's say 60 seconds ago, you can report and you've engaged in voluntary work at that moment.
Yeah, right. And it doesn't take a lot of energy or time, and you're already giving back to society.
Yeah, I have another good example of that actually.
This program is called Be My Eyes.
This is so meaningful and useful for everyone involved.
So if you volunteer for this program, you do a video call, so it's virtual volunteering, and you connect with a blind person.
And in that moment, the blind person needs your help, and it could be something as simple as reading a food label.
So you're only volunteering in that instance for a matter of, could be 15 seconds, it could be 20 seconds, and you might not volunteer again for another couple of weeks if you're very busy, because the program knows your schedule.
So you let the program know your schedule, and then they'll match you for your available times.
And beyond that, there's no stress, you don't have to worry about it.
And that's another major advantage too, is that if you're part of a volunteer program and you're required to be at a location in the future, at a particular time, and then life happens, you know, work happens, family things happen, and if you can't make it, then that's added stress for you, and then
you're potentially letting somebody down as well.
So with this type of program, where you let them know your schedule and when you're available, then it just takes the stress and it makes it so much easier for everyone involved.
Yeah, it takes especially the pressure on the part of those with disabilities, because without the system, without the technology to match the demand and supply of service, then the person with disabilities might have to plan their life very carefully, considering at what moment the service might be
available to them. Whereas given that real -time response from the system, then they can really enjoy a better life whenever their needs arise, and then there's a possibility of them being met over the system.
I mean, that's, oh, I couldn't wish for anything better than that.
Yeah, it's not to say, though, that things like virtual volunteering don't come with their disadvantages.
They do. There's a digital divide, right?
Not everyone has access to a smartphone or the internet, even.
So it's creating a situation where some people are available to volunteer, but others, whether they want to or not, they simply just can't.
So that's one of the challenges as well.
Another one we know about this very well, technology changes very, very, very rapidly.
You have to learn. So for these organizations, they have to keep up with what's going on, technologically speaking, to make it as easy as they can for people to volunteer.
But also from the volunteers' point of view, they need to know what's going on with technology as well.
Social media is a very powerful tool for volunteer organizations these days because to get young people involved, social media platforms, live streaming your volunteering events, that can be a powerful thing as well.
But making sure everyone knows what's available is a challenge for volunteer groups.
Some of the volunteering tasks are actually helping people to learn about the new technology to overcome the challenges.
And it's actually a good thing because if you think about a voluntary work, we are thinking about people in need, in dire needs, and we want to give them the necessary help at that moment.
That was my perception about voluntary work at the first place.
But later on, I realized that it doesn't have to be that.
It doesn't always have to be secure those in dire situations.
It can also be helping those with a good life, having a better one.
For instance, we see, for example, people in Gansu province.
They are helping those engaged in agricultural productivity to have better technologies and better resources and engaged in live streaming, shopping.
So they tell them the technique, teach them how to do live streaming e -commerce so that they can find better buyers of their products.
So the only reason I'm reminded of this example is because Steve said that you have to keep up with the technology.
And that is one, well, yeah, we can help people who want to do voluntary works to know the technology by voluntary work.
If I am describing it.
I try to volunteer on three different occasions.
Twice I failed, I think, and once I was successful.
When I was in high school, I called a local literacy program because I wanted to volunteer my time to help people learn to read for those who couldn't.
And I called and I said, I'd like to volunteer.
And they said, that's okay.
I said, what do you mean?
They said, Oh, what we mean is like we have enough volunteers right now.
We wouldn't have anything for you to do.
But please contact us in the future.
Another time was I was looking to my mom was into politics when she was young.
She ran for mayor in our town and stuff.
So I thought, okay, maybe I can maybe I can do that.
So I called one political party.
I said, I'd love to volunteer.
They said, that's okay.
So I called the other political party.
They said, that's okay.
And I thought, Oh my goodness.
All right, well, that's that.
But then the success came in university.
When I was teaching university in Korea, I contacted the local soup kitchen.
And I got all my classes, I had six different classes involved, all the students, so about 180 students.
And I asked them to bring food for one particular day, some rice.
So we gathered so much rice, so much canned food for the local soup kitchen.
And that that was an amazing event.
Yes, I know. And that's the charm of doing volunteer work.
You make friends, you help people, you in fact, you plant seeds for other younger people to be interested in and to devote their life.
It can be a lifetime's work.
I mean, for volunteers, we think it's something that we can do as a hobby.
But like we mentioned earlier, there's so much depth involved in volunteer work.
And so it can be somebody's lifetime pursuit.
Yes. And at its heart, volunteering is about care, compassion and connection by breaking down barriers to participation and amplifying impact.
