When people need help, language is not a barrier
Print Edition
Wang Lili is making her way among residential buildings and visiting foreign families under quarantine in Lujiazui in the Pudong New Area.
“I hope I can offer some help. I really appreciate the efforts and cooperation of foreigners,” Wang said.
For foreign residents, the language barrier is just another obstacle to keeping them safe and healthy during the epidemic.
So, the Lujiazui Community Foundation came up with the idea of recruiting volunteers among foreigners.
Within two days, the foundation gathered several volunteers who are fluent in Korean, Japanese and Italian.
And now, there are more than 10 volunteers, including Chinese and foreigners, in Lujiazui.
Wang, who’s involved in tourism, is one of them.
As the tourism industry took a major blow due to the epidemic, she had little to do. Fluent in Korean, she volunteered to help those people from South Korea through the hard times.
“The epidemic has spread overseas, and South Korea is witnessing an increase of confirmed cases,” she said. “I’m responsible for two residential complexes — Summit Panorama and Fortune Residence. There are some residents from South Korea and generally they don’t speak Chinese well.”
On her first day at work on March 2, she made phone calls to every resident family from South Korea. “I need to know their health information and whereabouts during the Spring Festival, such as whether they have come back from South Korea. Also, I need to know whether their relatives from South Korea have plans to visit them,” Wang said.
Then, she translated the latest prevention plans and health tips into Korean, and distributed the leaflets to them via door-to-door visits.
Every day, with social workers, she visits families under quarantine at home to check their temperature and relieve their stress, and hear about their concerns, such as a shortage of facial masks and failure to get delivery packages.
“I tell the community about their needs, and the community workers will address the problems,” Wang said. “It’s not a complicated job. I hope I make some contribution to the community work.”
The latest effort in Lujiazui is a multi-language online platform.
This allows foreign residents to register their health information and make appointments to buy masks without the help of their Chinese neighbors.
The platform, a new function of the subdistrict’s official WeChat account “Lujiazui Release,” offers services in English, Japanese, Korean and Spanish.
Having received so much help, foreign residents are repaying community’s kindness.
Putting on masks and orange waistcoats, Swede Annelie Andreasson and her husband Jorgen went to the east gate of the Skyline Mansion residential complex to help safeguard the entry to the community.
They help visitors and residents — mainly foreigners — scan the city’s health QR code and register their personal and health information. The health QR code is becoming increasingly important.
Meanwhile, at Yanlord Garden residential complex, nearly 60 percent of residents are foreigners. Kellie Henry, from the United States, has been living in the community for 10 years.
She translated the important information and updated prevention plans into English for the local foreign residents on WeChat.
“Though My Chinese is not good, I want to do my bit in the fight,” she said.
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