A group of female volunteers in central China's Wuhan City formed a Xinhu Volunteer Services Team to inherit Dayu Bay's culture and contribute to the environmental protection of the Mulan area, as reported by newspapers recently.
Dayu Bay in Mulan County, Wuhan City, central China's Hubei Province, is a famous village in Chinese history and culture.
During its 650 years of history, the Yu Clan has well retained a tradition of working in the field on sunny days and reading books on rainy days. To inherit such a fine tradition, Yu Xiaoqiong, a native of Dayu Bay, together with Huang Fang and other five women gave up the city's lucrative jobs to return home and set up the Xinhu Volunteer Services Team in 2015.
They were hailed by villagers as the "seven fairies"of the Mulan Mountain region.
In 2015, Xinhu Rural Culture Co. Ltd. was established. After that, the Xinhu team has invested a total of 10 million yuan in succession in an effort to transform an abandoned primary school building into a youth hostel highlighting the reading tradition of the area.
There was a public welfare bookstore in the hostel.
With a collection well over ten thousands of books, the bookstore provided a free borrowing service for nearby villagers and left-behind children.
The team has also carried out long-term public welfare activities such as farming, reading, art and educational training. These events benefited villagers, young students and left-behind children.
Through a series of cultural activities, the members of this team have instilled the concept of environmental protection into the hearts of participants and raised green awareness of children and villagers.
With the support of Mulan Township and Wangjiahe Street Women's Federation, the volunteer female team also established a good friendship link with the villagers around Dayu Bay to help them build a 4.8-kilometer road, set up a care fund for elderly empty nesters at their own expense and help impoverished households.
By the end of June, 2018, they had organized 44 caring activities for more than 200 empty nesters.
While helping the poor villagers, the team also gained trust of the villagers.
On this basis, they actively promoted the concept of protecting Dayu Bay and building a beautiful village, which was greatly recognized and supported by the surrounding villagers.
In August of 2017, the team members officially launched picking up litter activities in Mulan Mountain villages, Mulan mountain scenic area, and DaYu Bay scenic spot, with a total of nearly 1,000 people participating.
Subsequent work of the picking up litter campaign raises the awareness of environmental protection of residents in Mulan county, and Wangjiahe Street notably.
Since March 2016, the "seven fairies"have carried out large-scale afforestation activities in Spring for three consecutive years.
They promoted the Xinhu Planting and Blessing Activities on a large scale, and called on more people to join the team building a green ecological environment with humanistic sentiments, which caused great social repercussions.
In the past three years, the "Seven Fairies"Women's Environmental Protection Volunteer Services Team, echoing the call of General Secretary Xi Jinping's "beautiful scenery are gold and silver,"have been actively exploring rural culture, condensing the spirit of the countryside, showing concern for such issues as soil pollution and food safety, protecting original ecology, and promoting the construction of a beautiful countryside with the power of public welfare and culture.
At present, there are more than 80 volunteers in the team. Over the past three years, nearly 60 government agencies, enterprises and institutions with a total number of 3,500 people have participated in the volunteer services organized by the team, of which as many as 90 percent were women.
"It is our goal to uphold green and low-carbon development and build a clean, beautiful and civilized countryside,"said Huang, now the captain of the team.
"On the road of voluntary service for environmental protection, we have personally practiced it and appealed to more friends to participate in public welfare, environmental protection, and protecting our beautiful homeland,"Huang added in the end.