“Beijing in Action”: How We Take Action
Beijing in Action (abbreviated as BIA hereinafter), an NPO specialized in providing aids to rural immigrant workers in terms of legal, occupational and psychological consultations, has attracted over 400 volunteers (but only six are all-time staff workers) within less than two years. Thanks to its solidarity and executive force, it gets to where it is. “Love lies in action”, a resounding slogan it boasts, is a reflection of how much it weighs actions. To this end, a stable and well-performing internal structure is the priority issue. Though not a master key for all NPOs, the managerial structure of BIA may well be a showpiece for its counterparts.
Inspired by Hongkong’s NPO development experience, BIA features a supervisory board, the members of which are charged only with monitoring obligation rather than routine management. Theoretically and hopefully, the board may keep the organization from being controlled or used for personal benefits, securing its public and non-profit-making characteristics. Furthermore, being a small team of just six all-time volunteers, it gets round working simultaneously on several programs by lining up the tasks based on urgency degree and then getting them done one at a time.
Concerted efforts prop up high efficiency. BIA has so far extended job, legal and psychological service to more than 4,200 rural workers, answered over 8160 calls on help lines, hosted as many as 86 public events and involved at least 2680 people in these events. A cutting-edge “the helped being the helpful” model was experimented and successfully implemented in these activities. “In essence, NPO is representative of a notion,” said Mr. Han De, administrative officer of BIA, “the message we want to deliver is that people who help others are also helping themselves. And those who receive help can also be helpful to others.” Here in this context, rural workers, though commonly regarded as the powerless and the helped, can virtually be volunteers helping others. For example, a rural worker learned a game in an outdoor activity; then next time he would teach another participant the same game. For the volunteers, they may communicate in an equal atmosphere with each other and with rural workers over concerned issues—the new labor law that took effect in 2008, for instance. Such interactions bring out benefits. For one thing rural workers may walk away from the shadowy sense of inferiority and self-isolation. For the other hand, the volunteers get closer to the rural workers they serve and gain a better view of their life.
In addition, BIA formulated an “immediate volunteering system” to balance against the liquidity and instability of rural workers community. One may attend any interested activity at short notice and register as a volunteer (which is out of his/her own will). Progressively the group of volunteers grows big and gains weight.
Besides its managerial advantages, BIA has solidified itself through a triangular operational model—“on-the-spot activities, BIA hotline and BIA online”, which are respectively aimed at sending signals to people who have joined BIA, who have the will to approach BIA and who have yet to know about BIA. With that, it is hoped more volunteers may gather around and take actions.
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gsjanvzdilyvnvfjwell, hi admin adn people nice forum indeed. how’s life? hope it’s introduce branch