Out of lockdown comes new approach to community support
Wang Chuanlan (left), deputy director of the Social Governance Research Center of Fudan University, serves as a volunteer in her compound during the lockdown.
Local experts are calling for new community administration and service approaches in the wake of Shanghai's community lockdown.
Wang Chuanlan, deputy director of the Social Governance Research Center of Fudan University, said traditional community administration and service models were not efficient enough to cope with residents' needs in special times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
"My compound is home to a lot of migrant people and during the lockdown many faced difficulties such as lack of daily necessities, needs for medical services and anxieties, which were shared by other communities in the city," she said. "So I felt obliged to provide theory and practice support for voluntary services and community governance in Shanghai."
As the community was locked down and many services became inaccessible, residents in the compound needed to organize such services themselves.
Wang, with her expertise in research in grassroots social governance, has been serving her own compound in Yangpu District as a volunteer during the lockdown, and helped develop an efficient community management model.
Wang said she initiated several community governance conventions for the community in the special period, including how to develop procedures and approaches for dealing with local affairs, specified responsibilities and obligations, discussion and voting mechanisms and norms for management and supervision, to help the compound run smoothly.
Wang and other volunteers launched an online survey to learn needs of residents and prioritized them to organize group buying, parcel disinfection, hospital visits and medicine delivery, as well as care for seniors.
"We developed legible regulations on assessment and approval for group buying, products disinfection and after sales services," said Wang. "We also worked out a unified form for residents to apply for services in hospital visits and medicine delivery and a closed-loop procedure for volunteers to fill prescriptions for residents."
With her services, observation and online survey, Wang worked out a research report on the establishment of new neighborhood relations during the pandemic and gave her suggestions for improving neighborhood governance to the government.
Wang said the first choice for residents at the grassroots level was to take active action to help each other in their community.
"During the pandemic, such new neighborhood relations and organizations were like liquid to fill in gaps between the government and the market," Wang said. "This can improve the city's capacity in grassroots governance and communities' resilience against challenges."
Wang pointed out that previously, many people didn't know others living on the same floor of the same building. Now WeChat groups for residents in the same buildings and compounds and all kinds of groups for purchases have formed diverse self-management organizations or networks in neighborhoods.
"Such organizations are feasible approaches to improve local communities' resilience against emergencies or risks," she said.
Wang suggested the government coordinate interaction among neighborhood committees, residents committees, property management companies and such organizations to provide support for community governance.
