Volunteers: Passion to serve 'impressive'

Feng Yuan, vice-president of external relations at AIESEC China, said, "Young Chinese people have a passion for devoting themselves to nonprofit undertakings. More and more students are aware of our global volunteer program and have shown an interest in it."

VSO, the world's leading independent international development organization that offers volunteers the chance to work abroad to fight poverty in developing countries, started seeking Chinese volunteers to work overseas in 2010.

For decades, the UK-headquartered NGO has been sending global workers to underdeveloped regions of China to help fight poverty.

However, since 2010 it has selected 15 Chinese obstetricians, IT technicians, project managers, financial professionals and other talented people aged between 28 and 40 to volunteer in countries including Nigeria, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Nepal and Bangladesh.

This year, it plans to send about 30 Chinese volunteers to work overseas for six months to two years.

Shen Shuo, a project development official at VSO, said she was impressed with the passion shown by Chinese in volunteering to go to less developed countries.

Usually, most of the applications for volunteer work overseas come from people in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, she said. But there are also applicants from most other parts of China.

Only one in 10 who send in their CVs is selected for work abroad, and all these speak excellent English, have high educational degrees and work experience, she added.

"There are a lot of talented people in China, and their willingness to serve is on the rise," she added.

Qin Ru, a project manager at the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, said, "As more and more NGOs go global, the demand for Chinese volunteers to work overseas will rise."

Zou Yan, a volunteer working on an 18-month program in Kenya, said the mindset of Chinese people is very similar to that of Africans.

"Europeans and Americans stress a well-organized work style and closely follow a set agenda," she said. But in many cases it does not work in Africa.

Chinese are more flexible with agendas and are never overcritical, she said. "That's an advantage in work styles."

He Dan in Beijing contributed to this story.