Jingxing County's Red Detachment of Women Supports Post-Disaster Reconstruction
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???? The "Iron Ladies" are carrying supplies.
From July 19 to 20, the mining district was hit by a rainstorm and flood disaster rarely seen in history. The disaster was an order, and the mining district Red Cross immediately organized volunteers to rush to the hardest-hit areas including Jingpulan Village in Fengshan Town, Jiazhuang Village in Jiazhuang Town and Dayu Village in Hengjian Township to carry out flood rescue and post-disaster reconstruction. This volunteer team of 8 women was affectionately called the "Red Detachment of Women" by the people in the disaster areas.
? Among them are students and also mothers whose maternity leave has not yet ended
This female volunteer team of the mining district Red Cross is made up of 8 people. Among them are a high school senior on summer vacation, a bride-to-be about to enter marriage, a woman in her 50s from the war drum team, and a mother who gave birth just a few months ago. Some of them are old teammates who have participated in Red Cross volunteer service for decades without fail, some are new members who joined temporarily in response to the call, and there is even a young mother who resolutely returned to work before her maternity leave ended. After the charge horn of the mining district Red Cross's flood fighting and disaster relief was sounded, the female volunteers represented by Jia Yuying, a teacher at the mining district vocational education center, resolutely threw themselves into the disaster relief force that worked from dawn to dusk, braved the scorching heat and ate at irregular hours.
On July 21, the female volunteers of the mining district Red Cross urgently prepared disaster relief supplies in the morning and reached the hardest-hit flood areas in the afternoon. Along with them came more than 700 yuan in loving donations collected by volunteer Wang Jin'e from the Beifengshan war drum team. As soon as they arrived at the destination, they joined other volunteers in carrying supplies under the blazing sun, distributing food, water, emergency medicines and other urgently needed supplies to the affected people. It was only after 4 p.m. that they dragged their exhausted bodies back to the mining district station. Over the following 7 days, they left early and returned late every day, actively contacted village officials in the disaster areas, voluntarily took on disaster relief tasks, and proactively went to the homes of affected people to provide psychological counseling.
???? Putting up tents under the blazing sun, working no worse than men at all
At the beginning, village officials only assigned these women some simple, easy and minor tasks, believing that a group of women could not shoulder great responsibilities and that at critical moments men still had to charge forward. Most villagers also thought this group of women had just come to join the fun. However, the female volunteers were determined to achieve something and make those who looked down on them see them in a new light. In addition to completing the assigned tasks, they also proactively helped villagers clean flood-affected houses and furniture.
On July 24, the female volunteers received a tough task, which was to help Jingpulan Village, a severely affected village, set up disaster relief tents. At around 9 a.m., after everyone arrived in the village, it had been agreed that a specialist would teach them tent-setting techniques, but for some unknown reason the person guiding the tent setup did not arrive for a long time. To prevent the rainstorm from making a "comeback," the female volunteers, as if deliberately competing with the men, immediately organized themselves, chose a place with relatively high terrain and fairly flat ground, and quickly set up the tents while looking at the diagrams and following the instructions. During the dog days, people sweat profusely even doing nothing, let alone setting up tents under the scorching sun, which was undoubtedly a severe test of the female volunteers' willpower and physical strength, but they still worked with tremendous vigor. Watching the female volunteers dripping with sweat one after another, 50-year-old villager Sister Xu Lin busily moved through the crowd with a towel, wiping the sweat from their cheeks. It was nearly 2 p.m. before they ate lunch of pickled mustard tuber with ham and steamed buns with cold water.
Whenever the night was quiet, volunteer Jia Yuying would write what she had seen and heard that day in the disaster area in her online diary, and through WeChat Moments, QQ and other online media she conveyed to the outside world the rescue situation in the disaster area and the requests for help needed. Inspired by Jia Yuying, the mining district Red Cross female volunteer service group continued to expand, and rescue operations also continued.