A strong commitment to the community and the ability to contribute are what volunteers need. They are happy about the real reward of feeling happy, though they face the challenges of misunderstanding in a society where voluntarism is still a relatively new concept and cultural gap when your assignment is beyond your homeland.
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Three volunteers, one from China and two UN volunteers from Cameroon and Italy, made their comments about voluntarism at an video interview with People's Daily Online on August 28.
UN Volunteers Mahamat Adam (middle), Cameroonian, Project Officer with China-Africa Business Council, and Beatrice Targa (right), Italian, Intern for Support to Protection of the Rights of Children and Women, and "Beijing Top Ten Volunteers (2006)" winnner Liang Suhui, Chinese, Ph.D. Student of Material Science and Engineering Department, Tsinghua University, pose for a photo at the Reception of People's Daily Online on Aug. 28, 2007. They all stressed that there was a very strong commitment to the community, which distinguished voluntary missions from either an internship or a paid work. An intern would pay much attention to what can be acquired from the internship while a paid staff would do a job he/she did not like for the sake of survival.
Beatrice Targa is very glad to have the good opportunity of "exchange": contribution to move to a better society for working experience. She is in her internship for Support to Protection of the Rights of Children and Women with the UNICEF. As a student for a master's degree on development economics, she valued the personal growth in her experience as a UN volunteer in China. Governments in Europe, she said, do not offer many opportunities to young people so it is a good way to help young people to start their life.
Before working as a UN volunteer, Mahamat Adam was running his own company after he got his master's degree in China under the scholarship offered by the government of his country, Cameroon. But he thought there was something ought to be done to promote the China-Africa friendship.
Also he wanted to make up for his breach of the commitment under which he was supposed to be back to his country after his graduation. As a project officer of China Africa Business Council, he is trying to help Chinese investors have a good understanding of the real Africa and as a result they are more ready to set up entities in Africa.
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