My Story

Intro

China’s first AIDS case was reported in Beijing in 1985 and in 2003, it was estimated that there were 840,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in China. In recent years the government has began to increase the promotion of HIV/AIDS education and social marketing and senior political figures have been involved in anti-discrimination campaigns. Lily has connected her passion for social issues with her knowledge on HIV/ AIDS to mobilize youth volunteers to spread HIV/ AIDS awareness in rural Chinese communities.

About Me

I am Lili Wang from China. I started my university study out of hometown in 2003 and graduated in 2007. I am interested in the Public Relations & communications although I was majoring in safety engineering.

I believe it’s important for university students to study hard at university. I always had scholarships during my university studies. And it’s really important for graduates to find a job. I believe students should try to do different things like volunteering during their years in university, because they can learn a lot from the experience, which is also helpful to their studies. Learning by doing is very important.

My Venture

As a long-time volunteer who participated in HIV/AIDS activities held by UNICEF and Red Cross, I know the need and situation of the youth, migrant workers and farmers. There are so many young people around me who show great passion for social issues. The two factors inspired me to combine the young people and the people in need. In 2006 some of the students I trained approached me with the project idea. They wanted to educate migrant workers in rural areas about HIV/ AIDS.

Before every workshop, we select volunteers who study medicine and who are very interested in the topic and social issues in general. The project launched with students from 3 famous universities: Peking University in Beijing, Fudan University in Shanghai and Jinan University in Guangzhou. I focus on giving them the knowledge about HIV/AIDS, so that they can tranfer this knowledge in workshops to young people, migrant workers and farmers in rural areas. I also train the volunteers in teambuilding and communications skills as they have to work together and need to be able to communicate their message to the rural people as well as to organizations when asking for support.

So far we taught school children, factory workers, soldiers and farmers on HIV/ AIDS knowledge and skills to protect themselves against AIDS. Our youngest participant was about 11 years old and the oldest are about 30 years. Our participants previously never got any education about HIV/AIDS, so we always start with some games get them interested in the topic and than teach them about the topic with comics and movies. For example we show them how to use a condom and tell them about the 3 ways to be infected by HIV and how to prevent infections.

So far, we have held workshops in 40 villages and 3 middle schools in Hubei province in February 2007. Afterwards we held trainings in 49 venues in Fujian province in August in 2007 and 2 more trainings in 2008. And the number of our partners, including supporters, local partners and technical assistance partners has reached almost 50.

As the leader of the project, I am also a volunteer in our project. I hope that more top volunteers can be involved in our project as organizers who will promote the project to more rural areas in China according to our goal with 1-2 workshops a year. So far, our project focuses on HIV/AIDS. And we plan to organize more workshops focus not only on HIV/AIDS but on other health issues. Our project will be a great platform for university students united for health education and I want to involve more young people to educate other young people. And I hope more young people will grow up to entrepreneurs and social change makers by participating in our projects.