Team lends a helping hand to expats

Volunteers in Beijing's Wangjing provide information and translation services to foreign residents amid the capital's COVID-19 fight. Zhang Yi reports.

This year, Beijing resident Yuan Qianming has led volunteers to help keep crowds orderly at a nucleic acid testing station in a sports park in Wangjing, an urban area in the northeast of the capital's downtown that is home to about 6,000 foreign residents.

When they notice expats who are having problems registering information such as mobile phone numbers before being tested, they step forward to provide Chinese-English translation assistance between the residents and medical workers.

"Earlier this year, some foreign residents did not understand why they needed to show their passports or provide some personal information, thinking that it was a violation of their privacy," Yuan said, adding that careful explanations made the expats more willing to cooperate.

To better serve foreigners living in the area, especially during the COVID-19 epidemic, Yuan set up a volunteer team in April with people who can speak various languages, including English, German, Korean and Japanese, to contribute to epidemic prevention and control efforts.