“As a UN Volunteer, volunteerism is embedded in the heart and can be reflected at any time. When the novel coronavirus outbreak occurred in China, during the emergency, every UN Volunteer came forward to join the fight” says Zhao Tiansong, UN Volunteer serving as a Coordinator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) China’s Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable Development Project.
Zhao had just started his UN Volunteer assignment with UNDP, during the coronavirus outbreak. Having the option to also travel to his hometown for the Spring Festival, with the impending crisis in hand, Zhao decided to stay back in his duty station to support the prevention and response efforts for COVID-19 instead. Zhao’s hometown Yuhang District, Hangzhou City, in China’s Zhejiang Province, is about 1,300kms apart from his duty station in Chengbu Miao Autonomous County, Shaoyang City, Hunan Province.