Zhou Mengqiu is a disabled young person of the 80’s generation who needs care and concern from the society himself. However, in his mind, he thinks only of contributing his passion and love to the benefit of other people and society as a whole. Since joining the volunteer service team in 2004, he began to fall deeply in love with volunteer activities. In the past ten years, he has participated in various volunteer activities on more than 70 occasions, contributing his own humble might and continuously delivering positive energy to his community.

1. His educational journey was filled with hardships yet reaped great rewards as well.

Zhou Mengqiu was born in the Inner Mongolian capital of Hohhot in 1984. Due to left hemisphere brain damage at birth, he suffers from malcooridination of his hands and feet as well as language deficiencies. The hospital diagnosed his condition as congenital brain tissue damage and a secondary speech disability.

Due to his parents’ divorce early in his childhood, Zhou Mengqiu was raised by his elderly grandparents, who were in poor health. His father’s meager salary was the family’s only income. However, neither his hardship nor his disabilities brought him down.

Knowledge changes fate. As a disabled person, Zhou Mengqiu learned well that if he wanted to change his life, the only way to do so was to study hard. But due to his disabilities in speech and movement, his educational journey was destined to be filled with hardship.

The pronunciation of one individual sounds and syllables are simple tasks for most people. However they are difficult undertakings for Zhou Mengqiu, because of his language challenges. He struggled to pronounce words well early on, and sometimes even to make himself understood. But he chose not to surrender his life to fate. Instead, he tirelessly pored over Chinese textbooks, practicing his pronunciation over and over again until his throat was dry and his lips cracked. Due to his strong perseverance he overcame his difficulties with “speaking”. Although his pronunciation is still accompanied by a slight swallowing sound, his pronunciation is now basically the same as everyone else’s.     

After achieving his pronunciation goals, writing was the next roadblock” along his life’s path. Because of the dyskinesia that resulted from congenital brain tissue damage, both of his hands tremble slightly. As a child he could not always hold a pen well. In order to write Chinese characters in horizontal and vertical strokes, after he came home from school every day, this stubbornly determined boy would attach himself to his writing desk and practice unceasingly. Day after day, calluses began to toughen his index finger and his hard work paid off: in time, he could write characters freely at last. 

Payment returned. Due to his strenuous efforts, Zhou Mengqiu successfully completed his primary school, secondary school and technical secondary school studies. While attending that technical secondary school, he sat for an adult self-study exam, and earned admission to Hohhot Vocational College. Still not satisfied, he woke at dawn and studied late into the night during his years at vocational college, and sat for the adult version of China’s rigorous national college entrance examination. He enrolled himself in an undergraduate programme at Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University with a top score in the National Adult College Entrance Exam in the entire autonomous region. After graduating from the University with a bachelor’s degree, he obtained a position with the Haidong community of Dongfeng Road Subdistrict Office and was responsible for serving the disabled. In his spare time he participated in the City of Hohhot’s volunteer programme. 

After entering the workforce, he became increasingly aware of the deficiencies in his knowledge and skills. In order to more effectively complete his own work and make contributions to society, he went back to school again. In spring 2011, he enrolled himself in an undergraduate social work programme at the OUC’s Inner Mongolia School for the Disabled to continue his educational journey. During his studies at the School, Zhou Mengqiu obeyed the regulations and rules of the School conscientiously, showed respect for his teachers, participated positively in all kinds of activities organized by the School, and frequently helped other disabled students who had a limited range of movement. In minimal time, he learned the study mode of open education, dealt with the conflicts between his work and studies, participated in every face-to-face tutorial, attended his classes; finished his homework earnestly and promptly, achieved excellent results in every course, and completed his academic courses smoothly. He later applied the theories and knowledge he learned through the social work programme in his work and life, thereby further improving the quality of his volunteer work.  

His long educational journey has taught him self-improvement, increased his self-confidence, and helped him dare to smile at life while challenging himself. He extended this kind of spirit in every aspect of his work, and due to his firmly held ideals and beliefs, coupled with his indomitable perseverance and optimism, walked his own wonderful and unique path in life. 

2. Path of volunteer made him find his life direction, and realized the value of life

Ordinary people might suspect that for a disabled person, just working in a community would fulfill their goals, and they shouldn't need to care about other things. But Zhou Mengqiu didn't think like that. He chose the path of volunteerism, of service to society and other people. Having joined the volunteer service team in 2004, he signed up with the Hohhot volunteer organization again in 2008. In ten years he has taken part in more than 70 volunteer activities of varying sizes. 

Every year, Zhou Mengqiu insists on going to nursing homes and orphanages around Hohhot to clean up for lonely elderly people, send them sentimental items, make dumplings and accompany them to artistic performances, helping them feel the warmth of “home.” The task that made the greatest impression on him was when he and his volunteer team arrived at the Baimiaozi Nursing Home in Hohhot to help clean up rooms in 2008. That labour was the dirtiest and most tiring he had experienced. Zhou Mengqiu’s impression was a profound sense that, in that hard environment, the senior residents of the nursing home looked to the volunteers to fill the role that their relatives had not. It was a sad recognition, but one that filled him with renewed purpose.

In April 2012, as an experienced member of the volunteer organization, Zhou Mengqiu and his team planed and organized a large-scale activity to “visit impoverished mountainous areas to deliver warmth through stationery.” After one month of planning and arrangement, a ten-car “caravan” was gathered together and more than 80 compassionate people from all walks of life helped to load the various school supplies that had been collected into the vehicles. They would later be delivered to four primary schools around Hohhot, including Wangguiyao Town Primary School, Yaogou Primary School, Kuantan Primary School and Shantaizi Primary School. The stationery, such as pencils, erasers, pencil cases, school bags and after-class tutorial books were then delivered directly into the hands of each poor child. When he saw their smiles after they received the stationery and heard the words of “Thank you, uncle and auntie!” in their local dialect, his heart was shocked and tears lingered in his eyes. Sadly, many of these children cannot obtain access to good education because of poverty and the lack of available resources in their underfunded schools. “One trip may not change the environment there, but if every person contributes his own love, the warmth will go there,” said Zhou Mengqiu.

Due to his mobility problems, during most volunteer activities, other volunteers would not let Zhou Mengqiu do much or merely gave him some easy work. He thanked for their kindness, while at the same time telling himself that he should do more. Cleaning rooms and windows and giving out medicines to old people are things done by volunteers. Despite the simplicity of these tasks, he would keep doing them frequently. Although his individual efforts might appear tiny, they were enough to make the elderly people happy. He deemed the nursing home a second home for him. He even wrote down in a post bar: Volunteers? What are volunteers? Even though I have read many times the definition of volunteers, I can’t remember it. However in my life, every person can be a volunteer. A greeting, a warm text message, a free ride in a car, are all a kind of compassionate behavior we can use to improve our lives, simple but full of love. Start from easy things, for easy things start from small things and small thing start from daily life.

At the end of every year, Zhou Mengqiu would actively join in the production of a slide show summarizing that year’s volunteer activities. He helped sort through the numerous photos of the year’s activities and exhibit the best of them at the summary conference. He has helped organize these slide shows for five consecutive years. Every time he sorts through the photos, he is moved to tears, feeling the fullest joy deep in his heart. “The sense of being moved occurred at the twinkling of the eyes. While getting people moved, one is moved at the same time. I am not a star among the volunteers, but I would like to be an ordinary star among many, one which can glow and shine in this organization from time to time.”    

Maybe there was not much love in his own dictionary, but he thought he would give the society around him all the warmth he could. Public welfare is a common phrase. Although he didn't understand it well, he kept in mind “giving others roses, the fragrance lingers on one’s own hands.” Deeming Lei Feng as his model, he integrated the public welfare cause in his daily life.  Using his own helping hands, a loving heart and a warm regard for others, he managed to make himself happy. He wrote down the following in his diary: I am willing to live like a happy fool. In 2012, 2013 and 2014, Zhou Mengqiu gave speeches on Public Welfare in My Heart at Inner Mongolia University, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University and Inner Mongolia University of Technology, sharing his academic and personal progress with college students, who were deeply touched.

Through many years of volunteer service and activities, Zhou Mengqiu discovered his own life orientation and the ladders necessary to realize his life’s true value. His life dreams can now take flight. He remains a member of the volunteer coordination group of Hohhot and serves as its public relations manager, and the vice president of the Association for the Disabled in the Haidong Community of Dongfeng Road Subdistrict Office of Xincheng District of Hohhot. He also serves as an instructor of social public welfare activity at Inner Mongolia University of Technology, a correspondent for a magazine for disabled people at Inner Mongolia, and a Baidu post bar operator of The Autumn in the Dream and The Disabled in Hohhot. He was awarded the first “Moral Model” award by Hohhot’s Xincheng District in 2013, as well as with the Excellent Volunteer of FM 90.1 Radio of City Life of Hohhot Broadcasting and TV Station, Excellent Student Volunteer in Social Practice Activities in the Autonomous Region in 2012. He was also a candidate for The Star of the Plum of undergraduates award in Inner Mongolia in 2012.  

Zhou Mengqiu giving a speech on Public Welfare in My Heart

By Inner Mongolia RTVU