Foreign volunteers patrol in the street in Yiwu. (Photo/Chinanews.com)

Every Thursday evening at 8 o’clock, several foreigners in volunteer uniforms start to patrol Jimingshan residential community in Jiangdong Street in Yiwu, east China’s Zhejiang Province, striking Chinese gongs while shouting things like “be careful with fire in dry weather conditions” one after another in English, Russian, and Arabic.

These people are not making a movie. They are, in fact, part of a local volunteer team, an innovation within local community management.

Yiwu receives about 500,000 single foreign visits for business every year, aside from the 13,000 foreigners who currently reside in the city.

To help foreign residents integrate, the CPC community committees have built Party member-led service teams to encourage foreign residents to take part in community management, to increase community cohesion through services.

There are 1,302 permanent business people in the Jimingshan community. They come from 59 countries and regions around the world. To help them overcome the language barrier and cultural differences, the Party service center has launched free training in Chinese language, handwriting, and e-commerce.

People who take part in volunteer services are given priority in receiving the training. If a foreign resident accumulates 72 points through volunteering, they can exchange them for a semester of free lessons.

So far, over 820 foreign volunteers from 28 countries have exchanged their accumulated points for more than 1,800 hours of training.

In addition, during Chinese and international festivals, various communities in Yiwu hold cultural exchange activities, such as the neighbor festival for Chinese and foreign residents, Chinese language contests, football games, and cooking activities.

In Xiuhu residential community in Choucheng Street of Yiwu, three Algerian siblings who were born in Yiwu have become famous in the community, for their ability to recite ancient Chinese poetry.

As the efforts continue, more foreign residents in the city have participated in community management, turning themselves from recipients into contributors.

It can be best described as “one for all, all for one” because, in Yiwu, people are all family, an Iranian businessman, who has lived in Yiwu for 16 years, said sincerely, adding that only with joint efforts and proper community management, can residents achieve win-win results.