Road to Civic Society—Dialogue with Zhai Yan, Executive Director of Beijing Huizeren Human Service Centre
Since volunteer culture and volunteer training mechanism have not taken root in China, the ambition always hits the wall to put all volunteers in the right place. A more reliable model lies in the concept of “civic society” where government indirectly rules the society.
Upon Huizeren online hang three slogans: “Equality for all, and all due respect for diversity”, “Your help for others is for yourself as it digs out another side of you”, “Let your life change that of others”. All these resounding mottos come down to one word—humanism. In this context, “humanism” can be outlined as centring around people based on their mental and occupational needs to improve service efficiency. The biggest discovery of my visit to Huizeren is its human-centred principle.
Zhai Yan，an easy-going volunteer trainer, is the executive director of Huizeren. During the interview her silver tones, clear-cut logics and far-stretched vision gripped me tight inside.
Huizeren has a clear priority task—structuring a complete volunteer training system, or in other words, extending training service of all kind to NPO members and volunteers. Actually, such organisations are rare in China and as far as current statistics show, there are no courses on civic education at any education institution. “Teach yourself before teaching others because no one is expert from the beginning,” Zhai put it this way.
In 2003 when SARS waged the dreadful war against the country, Huizeren was set up against the tide. Unlike its NPO counterparts, Huizeren did not hassle with directly confronting the disease. Instead, it adhered to its own judgement—volunteer training and research into NPO mechanism in China.
Despite ups and downs and pressure from all aspects, Huizeren has worked out a seamless system of training courses composed of three layers—“volunteer service concept and basic skills” for volunteers, “volunteer administration and project management” for mid-level managers and “leadership and organisation administration” for top brass. These three courses are so intertwined that they wield separate cells within the organisation into an organic circle. For example, managers that attend volunteer administration courses may affect and teach their volunteer staff (There are over 200 professional volunteer trainers, most of them from colleges and NPOs).
Huizeren has positioned three core services—training, mechanism construction, research and publicity. Guided by such orientations, Huizeren is now clearer about what it is supposed to do at crisis. The best evidence is the recent Wenchuan Earthquake when Huizeren did not rush to forefront but directed its attention to what capabilities were needed in the rescue as well as reconstruction process. By doing that, they insisted, different NPOs could appear where they were most needed. “Currently few organisations can remain sober and independent to supervise the rescue and put forth valuable proposals. They don’t know what their role really is,” said Zhai.
Usually on heels of a catastrophe, a spate of new NPOs would spring up, vying to have place in history. However, as Zhai criticised, everything is twofold. When disasters fall, civic consciousness may be evoked in some people, urging them to voluntarily scrape up an NPO-like rescue team, which is by all measures praiseworthy. But such makeshift gatherings would not sustain. The real sustainable model should be tolerant in the first place, acknowledging the existence of other organisations such as those serving the disadvantaged, the marginalized, AIDS carriers, the homosexual, the disabled and the divorced. Without the diversity of volunteer service, citizens are deprived of rights to choose. And this diversity means everything to Huizeren, a training body built on NPO eco-circle: the more NPOs, the more clients. In this sense, the quake crisis is nonetheless a chance for Huizeren.
But the overheated NPO fever is not immune to side effects. The bubble will be pricked once the fever cools down. Therefore, constant passion, rather than fever, determines the lifespan of an NPO. “That’s what Huizeren is obliged to do—studying varieties of cases and then summing up an empirical guideline for all NPOs,” said Zhai with excitement. As she introduced, rescue work is a grinding test of physical and mental strength. At the time of mental disturbance, men tend to blow it up while women would rather keep silent. As most NPOs are struggling to help others, Huizeren is thinking about how to help them.
Since volunteer culture and volunteer training mechanism have not taken root in China, the ambition always hits the wall to put all volunteers in the right place. A more reliable model lies in the concept of “civic society” where government indirectly rules the society. In this society, enterprises are the first option; they roll out products based on market rules. People that cannot afford market products could appeal to non-profit organisations. Government only plays a coordinator role between profit and non-profit sectors by issuing policies and organising procurement.
If we compare Huizeren to an enterprise in the profit sector, it provides raw materials for the consumer product suppliers (in this analogy NPOs). Its performance is heavyweight to both NPOs and the public. It is the “hero behind the scene”.
The hero now has its long-term plan—three-year “Western V” projects and a five-year inter-provincial project. “Western V” projects, renewed every three years, are aimed at helping citizens in poor areas, especially West China, set up their own NPOs. The inter-provincial project, with duration of five years, is launched to back programmes of training poverty-relieving volunteers across five provinces.
It was nearly six o’clock at the close of the interview. Yet Zhai Yan, given no time to think of supper, had to hurry on to a conference discussing Huizeren’s training service in the 2008 Olympic Games. She’s always been on the run. As she put it in her essay Doing NPO with Faith, “it is our faith or value judgement that decides who we are, and ignites our sense of commitment.”
Why doing NPO? Nothing but driven by faith!
Value Fulfilment and Route Exploration—A Visit to One-plus-one International Exchange Center
Mid-January 2008—in the “Good luck, Beijing!” International Wheelchair Basketball Friendship Games emerged two vision-impaired journalists from One-plus-one Studio of One-plus-one Cultural Exchange Center. Their presence captured spotlight because their studio is the first radio production team by vision-impaired people that fulfils the whole chain from interview to programming to broadcasting. Its regular programs have now covered over 60 radio stations all around the country.
Gao Shan, chief of the organization, once pointed out in an interview that if blind people could be active part of main social events and make their voice, it would be a good practice for disabled people to be melting to society and to fulfil their value. An NGO established and run by the disabled, One-plus-one has been dedicated to tracking social development, delivering the public’s voice as well as exploring the operation of social benefit enterprises.
Value Fulfilment—Their Mental Needs
Registered in March 2006, One-plus-one is a social benefit organization launched by disabled volunteers, 12 of whom are whole-time staff including nine disabled. They are young and talented: most of them were born in the 1980s, and all of them received higher education.
One-plus-one has been focused on the production and development of audio-programs, providing a service and broadcast platform for all NGOs to boost the communication and practices of the disadvantaged groups in skill training, information exchange and social development and ultimately to enhance their living abilities and fulfil their value.
“Every individual has a deep pool of potentials, and so do the disabled,” said Gao Shan, “they can do amazing things just as normal people and they are desperate to prove that. So that’s what we are trying to do.” He also believed that every bit of effort One-plus-one is making in information delivery and idea innovation is a positive extension to what they call “help-others model”.
In the studio located in South Beijing, your journalist saw the third-generation recording and producing system being adjusted. “The programs we produce are not only service for the disabled, but also the manifest of our thoughts, our dreams. Meanwhile we find pleasure in such service. So everybody is enjoying their work,” introduced one of the staff. The studio has to date produced a couple of programs including life-related newscast and entertainment broadcast for the disabled, and programs for the public to raise social concerns for the disabled.
In a topic selection meeting, your journalist noticed that all the hosts and editors were speaking out their opinions, agreeing and disagreeing with one another. Here ideas crossed over minds amid an easy atmosphere. “Everyone here is a producer, a host. And their proposals are equally expressed and if reasonable, will be put into practice,” said the young host Qing Feng.
Social Benefit Enterprise—The Third Option of NGO
As an inseparable part of One-plus-one Exchange Center, the studio is feeling its way to a rational operation model, which means that it is neither a pure social benefit organization, nor a 100% profit-seeking enterprise, but a combination that makes profit to feed back to society. “Speaking of NGO, people would immediately associate it with ‘non-profit’,” said Gao Shan, “but this is a half-blind look at NGO. As a matter of fact we should judge it by how it makes profit, and where the profit goes down to.”
The projects that One-plus-one carries out are of significance in two respects—integrating technological progress into service on one hand, and provoking the consciousness of the disabled to get back to the mainstream society on the other. The success of social benefit enterprise is sure to push the NGO cause one-step further in terms of funding, technology and influence.
The radio programs of One-plus-one are free of charge for now. However, some other programs still under way, given their entertainment value, will be officially cast into market in future. “Our project is still at the planning stage. So we need financial and technological support from the society. Considering the complexity of the factors that decide the proceedings of the project, we need to figure out a holistic picture and a slow-but-steady development strategy,” explained a project manager.
Harmonious Co-existence—Tackling Arguments in Development Routes
After numerous rounds of rigorous check and assessment, One-plus-one won the contract with London-based Big Lottery Fund on the project named “Engaging China” in May 2006 and later cooperated with BBC-World Service Trust. With efforts from all parties, the project ended up being successful in reaching preset goals at the end of May 2008.
“When the project was taken over, different voices were heard from some NGOs,” said Gao Shan, “we didn’t dispute in public or give a direct response, because we know the development of a civil society needs different voices. And such difference reflects the inevitable outcome of different development routes. The bigger challenges are how to face ourselves, how to face the disabled group, and how to improve our abilities and fulfil our value.”
In fact, the dispute is just a miniature of greater disaccord among NGOs. NGOs are still trapped in fund shortage and have-no-say dilemma albeit in an improved hardware and software environment. Notional split-up, intensified by unrestrained scramble for limited resources, has grown into a great force that rips them apart.
Upon that Gao Shan reckoned, “every NGO has its unique advantage and development orientation. So above all is mutual respect. Differences should be allowed and of course, a reasonable scale of competition will step up the progress of the entire cause….We hope to relieve misunderstandings through communication and discussion.”
Multiple Possibilities—1+1 Has No Definite Answer
“1+1﹥2 if cooperation is counted in; 1+1=1 given mutual integration; or it could be 1+1+1 which stands for further extension within the society,” replied Gao Shan when asked the origin of the name One-plus-one, “Don’t always figure 1+1 equals 2. Just like we hope people would not stick to an old impression of the disabled”
One-plus-one is still youthful, enjoying its glories and dreams as much as it takes on pressure and challenges—just as China’s social benefit cause is going through. In the long march to prosperity, there must be thorns and storms, but every footprint they leave brings them closer to the destination.
Footnote:
Beijing One-plus-one International Exchange Center is a non-profit organization established and registered by two IT professionals with disabilities in March 2006. Its routine operation is run together by disabled and healthy staff. It is now a member of China Association for NGO Cooperation.
