A culture of volunteering
Volunteering has been widely promoted in China since the Olympic Games Beijing 2008, with the Chinese government drawing up regulations for managing volunteer activities in the ten years after the Games and creating a legal framework to protect the interests of volunteers.
The Chinavolunteer website allows people across the country to register their services as volunteers. More than 93.6 million have chosen to do so, and together they provide nearly one billion hours of volunteer services as part of over 1.4 million projects.
Based on the values of dedication, togetherness, mutual support and progress, volunteering has long had a place in Chinese culture and society, with a history dating back several thousand years.
Values such as those infused the volunteer campaign for the Olympic Games Beijing 2008, the theme of which was “Smiling Beijing”. Hailing from 98 countries and regions in all, the 74,000 volunteers who signed up for the programme each wore a “Smiling” bracelet comprised of the five colours of the Olympic rings: red, yellow, black, blue and green, which respectively symbolised the volunteers’ commitment to be helpful, courteous, honest and trustworthy, enterprising, and environmentally friendly.
They were supported by another 400,000 city volunteers staffing 500 information points around Beijing, providing information and translation services for visitors.
The Olympic Volunteers Project ran until June 2010 and promoted volunteering through the Games and highlighted the contribution that it had to make to social and economic development, which the project sought to deliver through post-Games programmes and the training of 10,000 volunteer leaders.