THE NINTH SHANGHAI PHILANTHROPIC PARTNERSHIP DAY

From September 21st to September 22nd in 2019, the ninth “Shanghai Philanthropy Partnership Day” hosted by Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau was held successfully in Shanghai Gongyi Xin Tian Di (municipal basement for NGOs). The theme of the “Shanghai Philanthropy Partnership Day” this year is “Achieving our Future through Joint Public Service”, focusing on waste classification – a hot social topic and promoting the sense of public service.

Waste Classification and 18 selected social organizations’achievements in waste classification were exhibited during the “Philanthropy Partnership Day”. The 18 organizations were using various ways and media to promote the importance of waste classification like gallery, board newspaper, Wechat official accounts, and public service short films as well as by uniting schools, property management companies, communities and other resources. Shanghai Roots & Shoots is dedicated to environmental education for the youth, always arises public’s awareness of waste classification, recycling, and reuse, shares the experience of recycling activities implemented in schools or companies in Shanghai over the past years, and introduces its ides on environmental protection by reusing waste.

Achievements in Waste Classification by Social Organizations

The exhibition of the achievements in waste classification was one of the highlights at this year’s “Philanthropy Partnership Day”, introducing the experience of different social organizations in promoting the work of waste classification to the public. The history and projects of Shanghai Roots & Shoots have gained a lot of attention.

On the morning of September 21, Ms Zhenxi ZHONG, Executive Director of Shanghai Roots & Shoots, introduced the recycling campaigns in the past years to the governors from the Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau and other related departments. Shanghai Roots & Shoots has taken part in calling the residents to sort the waste and has developed different educational projects of waste classification since its early years.

To stick to the theme of the activity, volunteers of Shanghai Roots & Shoots led people involved into a mini game called “Four-color Classification”, and those who did well in classification could get a pencil made from recycled paper. The game and special prize not only attracted a lot of children and their parents, but also gained praises from a lot of professionals in public service.

“Waste-to-Treasure” Handcraft Workshop

Shanghai Roots & Shoots is also very experienced in reusing waste. This year, Shanghai Roots & Shoots decided to lead the “Purses of Used Advertisement Back-drops” handcrafting workshop. Trained volunteers gave one-on-one instruction to kids who participated in handcrafting there. The kids showed great interests and experienced the joy of turning waste to treasure by making little purses themselves. The workshop sparked the potential enthusiasm for environmental protection and waste reduction in them.

Even if tools like hammers were used at the workshop, all the participants had read the instructions and the volunteers provided supervision and notice, so there was no injury at all.

Volunteer Management Salon

During the Partnership Day, Ms Sasa HE, coordinator of the YES Program, was invited to share her experience about volunteer management at the Volunteer Management Salon. Sasa drew the following conclusions from her 5 years of recruiting and managing volunteers in the environmental education project: regularly training the volunteers, annual salon, volunteer summer camps, volunteer uniforms and the souvenirs of the logo of the organization, big data management, interaction on public platforms and other forms of management can greatly enhance the professional skills and core competitiveness of the volunteers; we can go from volunteers to families, communities and schools; also, various kinds of training, interesting courses, interaction online and offline and the grasp of current hot topics can all be the keys to keeping the volunteers!

Making public service a lifestyle is also what Shanghai Roots & Shoots is trying to achieve!

Public Service by Schools

As the brand new part of this year’s “Philanthropy Partnership Day”, the first “School Public Service Exhibition” was held, exhibiting the special public service projects of 37 schools and 10 universities in Shanghai by showing pictures and articles, project interaction, roadshow activities and so on, effectively spreading the message about the culture of public service.

The two-day “Philanthropy Partnership Day” was a success, and Shanghai Roots & Shoots also did well in completing the task of participating in the exhibition. Various organizations established new partnerships on charity, public service and social responsibilities, and formed the positive “social public service ecosphere”, in order to establish the harmonious public service partnerships between government, social organizations, corporations, media and the public.

According to statistics, up to the end of August 2019, There are 16760 social organizations, 386 charity organizations, 80 community foundations and 3240 Regular Social Donation Reception Stations and Sites in Shanghai. These organizations have already achieved the goal of fully covering resident committees in central districts of Shanghai. In Shanghai, there are 4755 public service base already established, 226 legally registered volunteering organizations, and 288427 “Public Service Passport” issued by “Shanghai Public Welfare” to volunteers in the city.