Henan taps youths' can-do spirit to spur local economy

In Houhe town of Neihuang county in Henan province, a team of volunteers designed a rural vitalization plan for Yuzhuang village, setting up a cultural and tourism station and an intangible cultural heritage (ICH) workshop, attracting 500 migrant workers back to work.

Shi Qiuwen, Party secretary of Yuzhuang, was jubilant, saying: "Previously, all our young people ventured outside for work, but now they can find jobs at home. During peak season, the village can receive over 200 tourists a day."

The team, from Zhengzhou Tourism College (ZTC) located in the provincial capital, are part of ZTC's service bodies helping guide students to gain knowledge in practical education.

Founded in 1985 and now with some 18,660 students, ZTC has integrated its volunteer service into Henan's cultural tourism in recent years, creating a unique path allowing students to grow and succeed through serving society.

Besides Houhe, ZTC service teams also designed development plans for other townships, benefiting more than 5,000 villagers in developing the local economy.

On April 26, a group of ZTC volunteers explained e-commerce operation skills for agricultural products to villagers in Hanmen village under Gongyi's Dayugou town.

Wei Yinuo, a sophomore student leading the group, said: "We applied our marketing skills here to help them sell their local specialties nationwide. This is much more fulfilling than solving problems in textbooks."

To help its students in 12 schools, a continuing education college, and an international education college, ZTC has designed a multi-pronged structure — taking its ZTC Youth Volunteer Association as the leading body to cover nine characteristic service bodies, and forming a service matrix to explore six major areas including policy publicity, rural vitalization and ICH inheritance.

Zhang Duchuan, secretary of ZTC's youth league committee, said the college has issued 12 institutional documents to complete the top-level design, and put fragmented activities into a systematic project for education.

"Our system has two features — there was a qualitative change from 'activity' to 'project' in brand project incubation, and there was in-depth development of our practice bases built up through college-locality partnership," said Zhang.

At a scenic spot in Gongyi, ZTC team leader Feng Siyuan is leading an "ICH Radiance" student team in recording a digital archive for local shadow puppetry inheritors.

"We spent three months using VR (virtual reality) technology to restore 12 traditional shadow puppet plays, and this work has won over 2 million views on short video platforms," said Liu Min, a ZTC staffer, adding that such projects have expanded to nine, with each meeting the needs of local cultural tourism.

Li Ligong, a ZTC staff member, noted that with the help of projects, the students are getting professional empowerment in two ways — transforming professional knowledge into rural vitalization boosters, and bringing traditional culture back to everyday life.

In Haishangqiao village in Gongyi, ZTC staff member Zhai Wenbin, was guiding students in designing a VR panoramic tour system for the ancient village, saying: "We have used 3D modeling technology to restore 13 historical relics, allowing tourists to enjoy 'cloud travel' by scanning a quick-response code. The village's tourism revenue jumped by 40 percent last year."

The ZTC team also helped design packaging for local agricultural products, helping Sanguanmiao village to sell its agricultural goods 30 percent higher than normal prices, and allowing students to see the real benefit of rural vitalization.

Zhang emphasized that ZTC's ultimate aim in formulating this multipronged system is to help students in fostering a sense of responsibility through practices, so as to better serve the society upon graduation.

He noted that this type of real practice has helped students to cultivate their skills in national-level events, winning 12 national commendations and 35 provincial-level awards.

Li Ligong and Zhang Duchuan contributed to this story.