A global celebration of professional
services for the public good #PBW21
OCTOBER 24, 2021
In Oct23, the launching ceremony of 2016’CPBW was held in the Beijing City Civil Affairs Bureau Building. the week of October 2016 23-29 is the 5th PBW, and in this week, the theme will be the Pro Bono Clinic, which includes a set of Pro Bono services. The activities will be held by Beijing Huizeren Volunteering Development Center joined with Beijing Social Organization Development Center and the BVSRDI, and supported by Beijing facilitator, China Red Cross Foundation, Shanghai Hongyi Ecological Protection Foundation and Beijing Singularity Public Information Technology Service Center, while the sponsors are China Social Entrepreneur Foundation and Narada Foundation. Volunteers from the government, corporations and all sectors of society will be there to provide professional services such as Charity law related legal advice and technical assistance in management. Meanwhile, 25 nations around the wold will also hold celebrations.
Pro Bono means charitable social services provided by professionals that are free of charge. To bring more people into the Pro Bono Movement, the Global Pro Bono Network(GPBN) started to run Pro Bono Week(PBW) in October,2012. Beijing Huizeren Volunteering Development Center(HZR) was a founder of GPBN, and has been working on the promotion of PBW.
In Oct23 there were 2 activities that were the launching ceremony in the morning and the Pro Bono Clinic of legal advice(VSG) in the afternoon.
Dozens of guests gathered at the launching ceremony of CPBW.
Ms. Yan Zhai( board chairman of HZR), Mr. Tao Li (director of Beijing Facilitator)and Mr. Guang Chen(director of BVSRDI) gave welcome speeches as hosts
Ms. Ling Hu(from China Red Cross Foundation) and Ms. Yin Ye(from HZR) shared cases of volunteer service
Ms. Ruijun Yuan and Ms. Yan Peng(both are founders of Beijing Pro Bono Foundation) shared experiences
Mr.Jun Zhao(Ericsson Northeast Asia Corporate Social Responsibility Director) presented Pro Bono Manage System(PBMS)
Ms. Yi Chen(Deputy Director of Beijing Association Office) gave a speech
During the ceremony, they carried out online connections with volunteer friends in other cities of China, and received blessing from many international partners such as Pro Bono Lab in France, BONUM in Morocco and Taproot in the USA. In the end, they presented the PBMS.
the Charity Law of the People’s Republic of China was put into effect in Sep1, 2016. This event marked that China had entered in the era of new charity, and the social organizations will face both opportunity and challenge. They have a big problem of specialization and standardization development, which was a focus at this meeting. In the future, professional volunteers will play great value in promoting social organizations’ specialization and standardization development and producing social benefits.
The Pro Bono Clinic started in the afternoon. It had 3 parts, that were Medical Consulting Room(case consultation), Surgical Consulting Room(comprehensive forum) and Expert Consultation(project road show). Professional volunteers brought all kinds of consultation, tutorship and training, and they also gave lots of guidance to the organizations in the road show. These were their practice of Pro Bono in that day.
Case consultation had 5 parts, contained project management consulting, Labor law consulting, financial consulting, the political and social relations management consulting and volunteer management with IT. Consultation is a important element of Pro Bono. There are many professional around us, and with the help of social organizations, they can use their knowledge in commonweal consultation to great social benefit.
There were 2 topics in the forum: how to cultivate the talents with social adaptability; opportunities and challenges faced by social organizations in the legal system of charity. The experts had brilliant views and unique perspectives, making the forum really exciting. Audiences from all around China asked many good questions, and had deeper understanding about commonweal during the discussion.
In the road show, there were 6 groups from different social organizations and universities. They brought new ideas as well as new problems. It seems that people concern more and more about money raising and volunteer management.
20 professional attended the activity, as well as representatives of 60 social organizations and 20 volunteers from middle schools and colleges. The event was direct broadcast by micro-blog and the online interaction covered about 5000 people.
In Oct29,the theme salon: How Charity Benefit Companies will be run in Shanghai as the closing ceremony of CPBW. form Oct23 to Oct29 there will be PBW activities in UK, France, USA an Japan.
Volunteers were from HZR volunteer trainer, founders of Beijing ProBono Foundation, Communication University of China, Beijing City University, Beijing College of Social Administration and Beijing 101 Middle School. Thanks a lot for your support.
Written by Miss Cherry Zhang
Reviewed by Ms. Yan Zhai