Students to embark on journey west to serve people
One hundred and nineteen students from colleges and universities in Shanghai will soon be on their way to serve people in China's less-developed western region.
Recruited by the Youth League under the long-standing program "West Plan," the students will follow the path of more than 2,900 university graduates and graduate students from Shanghai who have served in the program since 2003.
The student volunteers were seen off today at a ceremony held at Shanghai Jiao Tong University's School of Medicine. The first of them will depart on Monday.
They will serve for one to three years in Yunnan, Guizhou and Chongqing, as well as Tibet and Xinjiang.
Before leaving, the volunteers were trained in communication skills, the rules of volunteer services and best practices for poverty relief in China.
They were selected from about 1,300 students from 60 colleges and universities in Shanghai who applied for the program this year.
Some are from the regions they're going to serve. One such student is Dai Huali, a graduate of the Shanghai Institute of Technology with a degree in digital media technology who is from Guizhou.
Dai, whose grandfather founded the primary school in her village and worked as a teacher for decades, said she looks forward to serving people in her hometown.
"I hope to let more people learn about the beauty of Guizhou, and I am going back with the media and communication skills I have learned here in Shanghai," she said. "The last poverty-stricken regions in Guizhou have been lifted out of poverty in recent years, but we still need to work hard to prevent them from slipping back."