Momentum sparked by rescue, relief and reconstruction after Wenchuan earthquake needs more support to flourish

Three years have passed since the 8.0-magnitude earthquake that devastated Wenchuan county on May 12, 2008. In the months following the earthquake, ordinary citizens, enterprises and social organizations nationwide rushed to deliver all kinds of aid.

Statistics show that 4.91 million volunteers - with 10 million in reserve - visited the area to help with the rescue, relief and reconstruction efforts, contributing financial aid worth 18.5 billion yuan ($2.85 billion).

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Such a response is unprecedented in Chinese history and 2008 is now regarded as China's first volunteer year. Building on this outpouring of compassion is a meaningful way to commemorate all who died in the earthquake.

China's public sector, civil society and the international community are the three wellsprings of volunteer work in the country, and all three have made rapid progress in the past few years.

Volunteers from the public sector mostly participate in major events. More than 1.7 million volunteers were directly involved in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and another 2 million in the 2010 Shanghai Expo. Statistics show that the volunteers for the Beijing Olympics amassed more than 200 million hours of service. Large-scale volunteer programs of this kind, designated for major events and organized by the country's public sector, have already become a distinctive part of Chinese volunteerism.

On the part of civil society, the rapid growth of retired and senior community volunteers, young enterprise volunteers and volunteer organizations run by college students have boosted the development of civil volunteer services and have helped popularize volunteerism and the volunteer spirit among the public.

As China deepens reform and opening-up, international organizations continuously dispatch volunteers to China and more and more foreign citizens are coming to China of their own volition in order to participate in volunteer work. One example is Eckart Loewe, known as Lu Anke, a young German who has spent 10 years teaching in the remote villages of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.