Chinese Youth Provide 4.1-Billion Hours of Volunteer Service

"More than 80 million young people have provided over 4.1 billion hours of volunteer services in the last eight years according to incomplete statistics," said a senior official from the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China (CCCYL) in Beijing Wednesday.

Cui Bo, secretary of the CCCYL secretariat and permanent vice president of the China National Committee for the International Year of Volunteers, said that at the end of 1993, the CCCYL initiated and implemented the China Youth Volunteer Action, which attracted many Chinese young people.

Cui made the remarks at a news briefing on the "Youth Volunteers Poverty-Alleviation Relay Project," which covers about 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in China.

Among the 200,000 registered volunteers, 6,810 were selected to aid as many as 160 poor counties mainly in the fields of teaching, medicine and health, Cui said.

Another major volunteer service is the "Youth Volunteers Community Development Project." It mainly involves three aspects -- "one helps one" youth volunteer service, services for community development, and the establishment of "Young Volunteers' Community Service Stations," Cui said.

Cui also talked about the "Save the Mother River -- Youth Volunteers Green Work-camp Project," saying young volunteers were organized to carry out some environmental protection service, such as tree planting, desert control, decontamination of polluted water, and removing white rubbish.

In recent years, millions of Chinese youth volunteers have provided high quality services for the fourth World Women's Conference, the Shanghai Fortune Forum annual meeting, the Kunming World Horticulture Fair, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings.

China Has Five Million Young Volunteers

More than five million young volunteers are now working in the urban communities of China, offering various services to local residents. This was revealed by Hu Chunhua, a member of the Secretariat of the Chinese Communist Youth League's Central Committee, at a national conference on urban communities held here recently.





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