At the beginning of the lecture, Mr. Zhang asked us: What is public welfare program and how to do it well? “Public welfare means to engage more people in this cause and make our world a better place.” Then, he focused on the following two aspects: The cause of public welfare shall be able to benefit the public and engage more people to make it sustainable (after all, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime).

Mr. Zhang shared with us his journey from a volunteer to a public welfare professional. He recalled that during his time as a volunteer, he started from "revisiting the northwest corner of China". He planned to finish the journey in half a year, but it took one and a half years. Then, he started the “Road to School” program, which raised money to cover the commuting to school of 178 students. Later, he joined a program to save Ruoergai, the most beautiful marshy meadow in China. All these programs together took him 11 years. After that, he joined "Hope Beichuan" public welfare activity to donate books and clothes for the students who suffered from natural disasters such as earthquakes and mudslides to help them overcome difficulties.

Then, whole-heartedly and continuously, Mr. Zhang carried out two public welfare projects. One is "I Fly · Rural Education". During the 10 years from 2010 to 2019, a total of 1,512 rural teachers from 853 schools in 287 counties of 21 provinces and municipalities came to Shanghai for the training. The other one is the “Share the Love · Computer Classroom Regeneration” project. This project is supported by full-time staff, professional partners and volunteers. So far, about 213,000 teachers and students in 161 counties of 30 provinces have benefited from this project. Such sharing of love doesn’t only happen at home, but also in Uganda and Kenya.

Inspired by Mr. Zhang, IT Director of SHBS Student Union plans to launch a recycling program of electronic devices to connect with Mr. Zhang's project and make some contributions to the area in need.

"We start to engage in public welfare programs because of our sensitivity, yet we need our sense to do it well and sustainably." Most of all, we need to hold firm our faith." How to make public welfare projects sustainable? Mr. Zhang brought up three points: first, we need to have a clear positioning for the program; second, we need to have clear goals; third, we need to have efficient and sustainable solutions.

We may not choose public welfare as our career, but it can be our way of life, written into our genes.