The 2019 Spring Festival is just around the corner, and it is estimated that around 2.99 billion trips will be completed during the Spring Festival travel rush, known as the Chunyun. This year’s Chunyun will go from January 21 to March 1. During this period millions of city-dwellers take trains, buses and planes to go home, and this mass migration can be an overwhelming scene. It brings challenges regarding transportation capacity and public security, and places a heavy burden on the shoulders of those who work on the front lines.
On the first day of the Chunyun, an activity with the theme “volunteers for Chunyun” was held in the West Beijing Railway Station. More than 140 volunteers from railway departments, government bureaus and enterprises made vows and officially started their service. Over 200,000 youth volunteers in more than 6000 service units including railway stations, airports and highway service areas around the country will engage in first aid, guidance and order maintenance. Regulations have been set with respect to volunteer recruitment, training, compensation and incentives for volunteers in order to smoothen the volunteer services for this year.
The volunteer service sector in China has been rapidly developing these years. According to data derived from the National Volunteer Service Information System, in 2018 there were over 100 million registered volunteers and the recorded time of volunteer services exceeded 1.2 billion hours. During his recent visit to Tianjin, president Xi Jinping particularly praised the volunteers in Tianjin and spoke highly of their devotion and contributions to the society. He also requested that more platforms be built by the government to bolster the volunteer services.
