Neighbors doing it for themselves
Print Edition
IN 2007, a retired couple living in the Yinxing Community in Jiading Town suggested holding activities for their neighbors in their own home.
Today, there are 1,497 neighbor centers or gathering places across 216 communities in the district’s 12 sub-districts or towns.
Every year, Jiading District holds activities for local residents so they can get to know each other and strengthen self-governance in communities.
Early on Sunday mornings, dozens of retirees gather at the gate of the Lijing Community of Jiading Town. They have been cycling together since their cycling-themed neighbor center was set up in June, 2007. It was one of the earliest neighborhood activities to be organized.
“We set up the neighbor center in order to keep fit and drive away loneliness,” 80-year-old Zhu Wende, one of the initiators of the neighbor center, said.
With rapid urbanization, former neighbors can become separated and individuals isolated. In 2010 the number of urban residents in Jiading was 500,000. Today it has doubled to around 1 million.
“Neighbors are strangers to each other because a lot of migrant people come to urban area and the ties of blood are no longer dominant in the new neighborhoods,” said Xu Xiaojing, an official at Jiading Neighborhood Construction Office.
Jiading started to expand neighbor centers across the district in 2009. Neighbor centers with distinctive characteristics have been set up in Anting, Jiangqiao, Xuhang, Waigang and Jiading Industrial Park.
The district and township governments subsidize the neighbor centers to the tune of several hundred yuan a year to support their development. There are additional subsidies for certain projects.
The neighborhood construction office collects public opinion, holds salons, and announces activity information on WeChat account “Jiading Good Neighbor” to promote the awareness of the centers.
On November 27, the Jiafu Community in Juyuan New Area joined hands with Yuehua Community of Jiading Industrial Park to hold a salon on the renovation of shared and living spaces.
At the Hongmei Community in Anting Town, a group of retired women set up a neighbor center by themselves.
They volunteered to paint flowers on manhole covers, renovated the garden at the center of the community and added parking spaces to improve the environment.
At the Deyuan Community in Nanxiang Town, a neighbor center organized fundraising activities to have lifts installed for more than 80 households, making it more convenient for residents, especially the elderly, who previously had to climb many stairs to get to their homes.
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