UM suspends classes for 3 days, students help with disaster recovery voluntarily

Source: My UM

The wrath of Typhoon Hato caused varying degrees of damage throughout the city of Macao. The University of Macau’s (UM) campus was not spared either. To help with disaster recovery, UM students have formed volunteer teams to clean up the campus and streets in Macao from 24 August to 26 August, when classes are suspended at UM. These students hope to do their best to restore Macao and campus to normalcy.

Wu Linkun, a third-year student from the Department of Computer and Information Science, and Su Baijing, a postgraduate student from the Department of Government and Public Administration, initiated the UM Hato Volunteer Team. They are very grateful for the active response from the students. ‘At first, we were thinking about forming a team of 10 to 20 people, but after we posted the news on WeChat, our friends forwarded it, and before we knew it, we had more than 100 people eager to join,’ they say.

Wu says that He Zhaodong, president of the UM Students’ Union, and Chen Yinglin, president of the China Mainland Students’ Association, have provided a lot of support in the process. ‘It makes me sad to see our beautiful campus and Macao damaged by the typhoon,’ he says. ‘As students, we may not be able to do much, but at least we can help to clean the streets. The Students’ Union contacted a cleaning company. With professional help, and our advantage in the number of volunteers, I believe we will restore our campus to its original state soon.’

The students’ voluntary participation in disaster recovery is not confined to the UM campus. Some of them help to clean the streets in Macao. ‘Whether it’s Macao or UM, we will do our best to help,’ says Wu. Clair Chan, a student who helped to clean up the garbage in Coloane, says, ‘I saw how hard the policemen and firemen worked. Some of them worked all night for emergency repair. I felt very touched. I hope to do something to help, so we can rebuild our community and our homes as soon as possible. ’

Yang Ruotong, a first-year student from the Department of Sociology who experienced this disaster not long after she came to UM, says, ‘It was so frightening, and I feel very sad that the typhoon damaged our beautiful campus. I hope to do my best to help with disaster recovery.’ This experience also made her realise the importance of friends. ‘’Had I faced this alone, it would have been extremely difficult,’ she says. ‘Through this disaster, I made some new friends, and we helped each other through the difficult time when there was neither water nor electricity.’

Shi Jiaming from the Department of Economics feels most sad about the fallen trees. ‘I have witnessed the growth of these trees, and now I am afraid it will take some time to grow new trees,’ he says. ‘I have experienced typhoons here before, but none was as bad as this one, I hope we can work together to face this difficult time.’