【推荐1】A group of students at Tongji University made a power box to aid relief work in quake-hit areas of Turkiye, which would be sent to Turkiye by air.

Two earthquakes, measuring 7.8 and 7.5 in magnitude, struck nine hours apart in southeastern Turkiye and northern Syria on Feb 6. Scores of strong aftershocks added to the damage as more than 6,000 buildings collapsed. The death toll has climbed past 30,000, and millions have been made homeless.

After learning that the earthquake-stricken area urgently needed mobile power, the students thought they might design a power box to aid the post-quake rescue and recovery work. And soon a seven-strong research and development team was set up. The team was divided into online and offline groups. Students living in Shanghai were responsible for the offline purchases and assembly of the power box. Other students online shared ideas for the design, compilation of equipment instructions and user manuals (用户手册) in Chinese and English, and were responsible for communication with the Turkish contact person for donations.

Though portable power boxes are available on the market, their design is tailor-made as the students have taken into consideration local sunshine and disaster relief needs to determine the power, capacity, size and other parameters of photovoltaics (太阳能光伏参数) and batteries.

The best use of the power box, which weighs around 15 kilograms and is equipped with a 10-watt LED light bulb, is its ability to provide 30 to 40 straight hours of light if fully recharged. That should guarantee the power box to be a reliable light source for a whole night even if it can’t be fully charged when the sunshine is not enough in the day. Their teachers also offered advice whenever the team encountered difficulties. They included a manual in Turkish, with the assistance of a student from Turkmenistan.

When the sign “humanitarian donation”was posted on the package, Bai Haoran, one of the students said,“It is worth the hard work over the past few days. We come to realize what the common community of mankind means”.

【推荐2】In the Chinese reality series “Forget Me Not Café,” five seniors with Alzheimer’s disease(阿尔茨海默症) work as restaurant servers and are enthusiastic about socializing and living a fulfilling life despite their condition. After watching the show, three Singapore Institute of Technology students, Nashita Fatima, Chen Zihan and Fang Qian, were deeply inspired by their efforts to raise awareness of the condition.

The three have decided to play their part in helping people with Alzheimer’s disease. They signed up as participants in the global Huawei ICT(Information and Communication Technology) competition to create smart glasses called Forever-Smart Glasses.

This eyewear is designed to help people with Alzheimer’s disease recognize their loved ones. Powered by Huawei Cloud, the glasses are complemented(补充) by an app called YourHelper. It has a built-in GPS positioning system to track the whereabouts of the elderly. Family warnings are automatically sent when the wearer gets lost or is far away from home.

For their project, this all-female group won the grand prize and the TECH4ALL Social Contribution Award in the Global Final of the Huawei ICT Competition 2019-2020. The Huawei ICT Competition is an annual international competition aimed at stimulating innovation for students in higher education institutions by challenging their knowledge of ICT.

Team leader Fang Qian, 20, said: “During our research, we found that there are many great AIoT products that improve people’s quality of life, but they are not focused on the elderly.

“We were motivated by the show and smart glasses technology to create a wearable AIoT device so that Alzheimer’s patients won’t forget their loved ones easily.”

Nicholas Ma, CEO of Huawei International, said of the winning team from Singapore: “It is important to train young talent to develop a sustainable and comprehensive mindset. We will continue working with local partners and institutions of higher education to build talent alliances(联盟), spread the value of talent and work towards becoming a smart nation, creating a healthy ICT talent ecosystem.”

【推荐1】Former truck driver Chen Xianjun played a final chord (和弦) on the guitar as he and his four band-mates — a salesperson, a farmer and two doctors — enjoyed the sunshine of early winter by West Lake in Zhejiang Province.

“Cherish your life,” Chen sang his song’s last line. Behind him was the photo of a foreigner wearing a warm smile and hugging his guitar. It was the 27-year-old man, Philip Hancock, an Australian teaching English in Chongqing, who made the warm scene come true.

Hancock died in May 2018 in Chongqing. His parents obeyed Hancock’s wish to donate his organs after death. Hancock’s liver and kidneys saved the lives of three people in the band and his corneas (角膜) made the other two regain the eyesight, including Chen.

“Last year, Red Cross officials advised that the five of us form a band in memory of Hancock. They told me that Hancock dreamed of having his own band one day,” Chen said. He accepted the advice instantly, and so did the other recipients of Hancock’s organs. “I’m more than lucky to be able to show respect for the man who gave me a second chance at a full life,” he said.

In the past year, the five “musicians” have learned various instruments. They traveled from different parts of Chongqing and Sichuan Province to meet in a studio for lessons. The Band for One, a fitting name for the group, finally gathered by the lakeside in Hangzhou on November 7 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the implementation (实施) of voluntary organ donations in China.

“I was nervous before stepping on the stage, but I think we all played our parts to the best after so many months of preparation and tension,” Chen Xianjun said. “All the recipients now have the ability to carry on with their lives, and I believe that’s exactly what Hancock wanted for us.”

【推荐2】My friend Dominic recently set himself a 21-day kindness challenge. He started Mother’s Day － May 10 － by surprising his mother at her work with his two brothers.

The week before his challenge started, he had won some money, so on Day Two he donated some of his winnings to a local disability organization in Horsham, Victoria. On Day Three he left money in an envelope at the laundromat (自助洗衣店) with the words “The next one is on me”. Later that day, the local district was hit by strong winds so he cleaned out his elderly neighbor’s gutters (排水沟) on Day Four.

Dom manages a retirement village and on Day Five he visited some former residents who had moved to a nursing home. Trading in his car keys for a bicycle helmet on Day Six was Dom’s way of being kind to the environment, and then on Day Seven he took his grandmother on a road trip to three different towns so she could visit the graves of loved ones she hadn’t visited.

On Day Eight he spent the morning down at the nearby Wimmera River where he picked up rubbish that was littering the shore. He drove 200km to the closest blood bank in Ballarat to make his first blood donation on Day Nine and then on Day Ten bought a lottery ticket, and put it in an envelope before dropping it into the letterbox of a random house.

On Day Eleven my daughter and I found ourselves stuck in a supermarket car park with a flat battery. I called Dom, who came to our rescue with smile, and successfully jump-started the car so we could get home.

Day Twelve’s act of kindness was volunteering at Meals on Wheels to help deliver dinners to people in the community who need extra support.

And so Dom’s kindness continued for another nine days － helping friends move house, delivering flowers to nurses at the local hospital, washing his aunt’s car and stopping by his grandparents to help out in their garden are just some of the kind things he did.

Dom took up this challenge because he had been through some difficult times after a relationship breakup. Instead of feeling sorry for himself he turned a negative into a positive and I can honestly say that it has been contagious(会蔓延的)!

【推荐3】When she was just 8, Sammie Vance thought about a question. What breaks your heart? “For me, it’s seeing people who need a friend,” the seventh grader from Indiana, US. told People magazine. “I’ve been lonely myself, I don’t want others to feel that way.”

Soon after a summer camp. Vance learned about buddy benches(伙伴长椅). These benches are seats at a school playground. A lonely child can sit on it, which shows that he or she is in need of a friend.

She loved this idea. “This would be really cool.” Vance said. Then she got into action at once. She collected 725 kgs of bottle caps and found a factory to turn the caps into benches for her school. According to Vance, these benches cost much less than common park benches and are good for the environment.

Vance collected more for benches at other schools, too. She also made a website page for others to follow her journey and make bottle cap donations(捐赠). She was surprised that her small project had had an influence on people around the world. She even received bottle caps from Germany and Australia. But she has no plans of stopping. She said in an interview that even adults(成年人)can use a buddy bench because people at any age can feel lonely.

“I just look forward to making a difference.” she said, “and inspiring(激励)other people to make a difference.”