Volunteers of the 2022 Winter Olympics Photo: Courtesy of the organizing committee

 About 19,000 volunteers will help out in various roles during the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games, which kick off in early February.  

In order to ensure that these volunteers are ready for the challenges they will face, the Beijing Organising Committee for the Games designed a four-stage training plan, integrating online and offline resources as well as guidance from universities.

The four stages include general training, vocational training, venue management training and on-the-job training, according to the committee. 

 So far volunteers have completed the first stage through video courses developed by the committee. The first stage is comprised of 23 courses that cover basic skills and code of conduct.

Each course is divided into sections comprised of several 15-to-20-minute videos. After each course is completed, volunteers are tested to check if they have grasped all the related information.

There are also in-person classes and training events that have been organized by universities, which  have taken full advantage of their expertise in various subjects to conduct training for volunteers.

This intensive training includes foreign languages, COVID-19 prevention and assisting people with disabilities. Volunteers also need to take lessons on international relations, mental health and ideological education.

The 95 universities have organized an average of 10 in-person training lessons each day.

Training at Olympic venues is scheduled to be completed by the end of January.

To ensure the physical and mental health of these volunteers, the committee recruited professionals to oversee their training. Ren Zhengli, a tutor at a college in North China's Hebei Province, is one of them.

"The mental health of volunteers is directly related to the quality of volunteer service," Ren said. 

As they serve, volunteers will face various psychological pressures. So psychological training is given to volunteers before the competitions to ensure that they will be able to adjust to and ease this pressure, which is conducive to shaping volunteers' healthy mind, Ren explained.

Ren said that volunteering for the Winter Olympics is an honor, but it comes with heavy responsibilities. She noted that she is looking forward to a great sports event.

During the Winter Olympic Games, volunteers will provide information and translation services, assist with disability accessibility and deal with emergencies, among other responsibilities. They are also provided with personal insurance and other necessities such as clothing and a meal budget.

More than 1 million Chinese, including over 2,000 disabled people, submitted applications to be an Olympic volunteer. Among the successful candidates, the youngest volunteer is 19 years old and the eldest 63.