Wang Yuanyuan
A TOTAL of 132 foreign volunteers from Europe are expected to serve at the Universiade in August, according to the Volunteer Department of the Organizing Committee of the Shenzhen Universiade on Thursday.
The 132 volunteers include 100 organized by the European Confederation of Youth Clubs and 32 from Kazan in Russia, where the next Universiade will be held in 2013, said Zhang Zhihua, vice head of the city s Committee of Communist Youth League.
They will also attend the world youth carnival in Shenzhen during the Games, Zhang said.
About 600 to 800 volunteers recruited by the Hong Kong government would also be involved.
Of these, 400 would work at the Hong Kong airport and checkpoints, while the rest will work in Shenzhen with 100 to work as interpreters in German, French, Spanish and Japanese.
Taiwan will also send 20 volunteers to work in Shenzhen.
The provincial education department and the Central Committee of Youth League will organize more than 600 volunteers from universities on the mainland, Hong Kong and Macao.
A campaign would be launched Friday to encourage Shenzhen students studying at universities in other cities to work for the Universiade. The department plans to recruit more than 1,000 Shenzhen students to promote the city and the Games at universities and return during summer vacation, Zhang said.
Shenzhen plans to recruit about 1.27 million volunteers for the Universiade.
The Universiade volunteer recruitment will close at the end of May.
About 22,000 volunteers would be selected by examinations and would be trained before starting work.
Meanwhile, the city s first Universiade volunteer work station or U Station would open in May and the rest would gradually start operating in June.
There will be 810 U Stations including 750 in main communities, streets, public venues and tourism attractions and 68 at the sports venues, Zhang said.
A series of promotions for the Universiade would be held in coming weeks, including cycling on hiking tracks and cleaning the Shenzhen North Rail Station to promote a better city.
