Applicable Skills

“My parents don’t really understand why I do this. They are happy because I am happy but many people in China still don’t see the value in this kind of work,” confides Linlin, one of the students from Jilin Medical College. Linlin, like so many of her classmates and friends, works most Saturday afternoons with the local and rural communities covered by Tian Ji Social Services Centre.

Tian Ji always aims to match the needs of the people it attends to with the skills its volunteers bring to the organisation. As such, Jilin City’s local university students most often give weekend one-on-one tutoring classes for 2 hours each time to underprivileged local children. There they cover everyday homework difficulties, questions raised by class-work and general study skills to prepare them for high-school (6th form) college.

There are however a handful of psychology students like Linlin that are capable of putting their knowledge to a different sector of Tian Ji’s care services. Those people living with AIDS will almost always be suffering more on a psychological level rather than physical one. Some can become veritably outcast by their local communities and/or families and many will have fears surrounding their afflictions. This group of students thus find themselves perfectly placed to approach these needs with greater understanding and establish meaningful relationships with the people whose wellbeing they attend to.

Home-Based Care

Although the size of the city is average at best by national standards, the distances to and from Tian Ji’s headquarters are costly both in terms of physical strain and finances for many of those cared for by the centre. For these reasons four groups of full time volunteers, each containing four people, go to the people’s homes themselves. There they can also provide much more personal care and support and see first-hand how they can improve the quality of living of those Tian Ji takes onboard.

These full-time volunteers are mostly retired members of the community and feel a genuine compassion for helping others around them. Their household visits cover those people living with AIDS during as well as elderly people without recourse or family care. The group leaders will regularly send out emails to the 200 or so university students on their volunteers lists to solicit help on their upcoming weekend home-visits. This mixture of age gives rise to a balance of experience and vitality necessary to the ongoing success of the outreach programmes Tian Ji offers.