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Owing to the ongoing socio-economic changes, relying on the initiative and enthusiasm of individuals to shoulder the collective responsibility as in the socialist era is no longer feasible. The over-reliance on volunteers to serve without adequate home-care service provision accounts for its limited effect. Professor Pei, Tsinghua University in Beijing, reiterated that having formal home-care provision should be the direction if the voluntary service is to be an effective means to support older people:

171 If volunteers are available, they can go out to provide service for older people. How about if they aren’t available? But the needs of older people are continuous…If there’s a system of providing formal service, then the voluntary service can serve as a supplement to it. How can we rely on volunteers if there’s no regular formal service?

Mr Zheng, Residents Committee in-charge, Dongcheng District, Beijing, who recruited and organised volunteers to provide help to residents in the community, also drew attention to the importance of having formal service provision rather than relying almost solely on volunteers to satisfy the needs of older people:

The delivery of voluntary service is based on what volunteers can give but not on the needs of older persons. For example, if I (as an older person) need the service, I make a call and the service should be readily available. It’s not that the volunteers can come over to help me or visit me whenever they are free…It isn’t adequate to use this service mode to cope with the needs of older people which are regular…Voluntary service can’t be used to replace formal service provision. They can at best be viewed as a supplement to the formal service.

The research findings indicate that a stronger state responsibility for setting up a community support service to address older people’s needs is desired while the voluntary services can at best be viewed only as supplementary rather than being the mainstay. Bulmer (1987) also pointed out that the voluntary services cannot cover all the necessary services in the way the government can provide though it is often believed that they can, to a certain extent, reduce the role of the state in service provision. It is also imperative to understand the nature of the informal sector so that their potential can be developed while acknowledging its limitations at the same time (Twigg, 1989). As noted in Chapter 1, the assistance provided by volunteers or neighbours cannot meet the personal care needs of older people which is supposed to be carried out by family members or a care worker that older people are familiar or have a trusting relationship with.

172 Apart from the formal home-care service provision which will be discussed in Chapter 6, the following findings may give some directions on how the voluntary service delivery mode can be enhanced. The greater role of the government to coordinate the voluntary service at the local level was seen as a way to enhance its service delivery, as pointed out by Mr Li, Deputy Director of Kaixin Family Services Centre, Guangzhou:

Over 90% of the older people enjoy good health...It is necessary for the government to encourage their participation in the community…The link (of young retirees) with the community is rather weak…I believe many of them are willing to serve the community…Maybe they just lack the platform or chance to participate…or maybe they don’t realise they can contribute in this way.

Mr Li’s observation of older people’s enthusiasm in providing voluntary service coincided with older people’s expressed keen attitude to make contribution to society. Ms Hu from Beijing, though having to look after the housework in a multi-generational household, spent her spare time to serve the community:

If I have spare time, I will participate in the social programmes, do something for charity…such as to guard the safety of this neighbourhood, on a voluntary basis, wear a red badge on my arm to show that I’m on duty.

Ms Ouyang from Guangzhou shared her wish to be a volunteer so that she could contribute to society:

I have the capacity to be a volunteer, because I have good health, still young, educated…I have the financial capacity, I will do something for the charity, I have the energy, I can be a volunteer, why can’t we help others?

In a study about the mobilisation of older people to participate in the community programmes in four urban neighbourhoods in Shanghai, Ho and Ng (2007) concluded that the newly retirees who are in their early 60s and still enjoying good health can be mobilised to provide assistance to the local residents. Older people are more willing to get involved in

173 neighbourhood affairs such as neighbourhood patrol, as noted by Chen, J. (2009). He explained that there are three reasons for their participation: their steadfast adherence to the collective responsibilities, the opportunity to expand their social network and their interest in the small gifts received after providing the service. This demonstrates that the mobilisation of older people for community participation has dual benefit of connecting them to the local community while they can also serve other needy older people. In fact, mobilising 10% of the older population to serve as volunteers has been mentioned in the 12th Five Year Plan on Ageing Service Development (2010-2015), as noted in Chapter 2.

Ms Zhang, Team Leader of the Home Care Support Section of an Elderly Integrated Services Centre in Haizhu District, Guangzhou, noted that sometimes, the volunteers were, in fact, the neighbours of older people:

It’s easier to encourage the existing network of volunteers to continue the service provision…These volunteers are also the neighbours of some older people.

Volunteers residing near older people means that they can be more conveniently assembled to provide support to their next-door neighbours. In some way, this also implies that neighbourly help is not naturally available as in the past. The residents need to be organised and encouraged to give care and concern for their neighbours. As revealed in the previous section, the older people still find the neighbourly support valuable in case of emergency or offering them short-term support.

Other than the means to improve the organisation of the voluntary service, more financial backup has been called for if the voluntary service has to be effective. This was voiced out by Ms Yang, Director of Beijing Cuncaochunhui Elderly Mental Health Service, and opined that even though the volunteers had an enthusiasm to provide service, the government needs to finance the development of the voluntary service. Ms Chen from Guangzhou noted that the government should pay more efforts to promote the voluntary service as a means to support older people in the long run:

174 If the government can provide some financial support to establish some agencies to take charge of organising the voluntary service in the community…the cost won’t be high, but it can provide support to older people. It can be a long-term support plan.

Despite the state’s aim to promote the neighbourhood responsibility to look after older people, such expectation cannot be met by the reliance on the irregular and unstable nature of the voluntary service when the social changes have affected the self-initiative of individuals to adopt the customary practice of mutual help. Moreover, older people, though having the expressed needs, are less likely to welcome the service provided by the strangers given the low trust level in the neighbourhood. Should there be formal service provision in the community, the volunteers can supplement it by providing short-term relief, keeping a watch on the vulnerable older people through organised visits or helping alert the organisations concerned of the risky cases in the community. To utilise the potential of the voluntary service requires a systematic plan to identify who are in need of home-care support and who can provide help. If this informal source can be mobilised or organised in an effective way, it can complement the formal service and enhance its service quality in the long run. With more state financial resources for the voluntary service development, as suggested by the interviewees, the NGOs in the sub-district can serve as a platform to coordinate the pool of volunteers and organise them to support those older people in the respective neighbourhood.