PKU Student Connects China & Iran in the Fight Against COVID-19

More than 200 volunteers from China, Iran and Afghanistan have teamed up online to fight the COVID-19 by translating China's anti-epidemic knowledge and experience into Persian and sharing it with Iranians via social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram.

The campaign, known as "China-Iran Epidemic Prevention Mutual Assistance Team" in Chinese, was launched on February 24 by Chen Binbin, who once taught Chinese in Tehran, and now is a PhD candidate at the Department of Chinese, Peking University, in China's capital Beijing.

The Azadi Tower in Tehran, Iran is lit in red with gold stars to resemble the national flag of China to show support to the epidemic-hit city of Wuhan in central China

According to Chen, she learned that many Iranians still lacked anti-epidemic knowledge when the COVID-19 broke out in Iran and founded the team to help.

She said she hoped that through their efforts, the latest Chinese epidemic-related information, as well as China's experience in fighting with the disease, could be introduced to the Iranian people and help the country pull through the current situation.

From 20 to 200

"In the beginning, I just wanted to find 20 or 30 persons, but the number exceeded 100 very soon," said Chen. "I've never thought that it would be such a large scale."

Today, the team consists of over 200 members from different countries and regions, including Iran's capital Tehran, China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Guangdong and Henan provinces, and Berlin in Germany.

About three-fifths of the team are Chinese; two-fifths are Iranians, and two are from Afghanistan, according to Chen. They collect the scientific articles about epidemic prevention every day, make short videos with Persian subtitles using the information and post them on their social media account @anticorona_ir.

The team is divided into several groups: data collection, translation, proofreading, video production and promotion. They posted the first video four days after the team-up and update every day with a clear division of work.

Chen said they plan to finish about 90 videos within a month, and the following work will depend on the epidemic situation.

The videos they posted online have drawn wide attention and are popular among Iranian netizens. Chinese Ambassador to Iran Chang Hua often retweets their videos on his Twitter page.

The official IRNA news agency reported the team's efforts to help Iranians battle against the COVID-19, saying that Iranian nurses particularly welcome their videos, which help raise public awareness of the prevention of the disease in the Middle Eastern country.

Fighting hand in hand

A volunteer in Yining, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, translates Chinese information into Persian

The volunteers designed a logo depicting a hand with both the Chinese and Iranian national flags holding a pencil on the backdrop of what appears to be a representation of the coronavirus, symbolizing that China and Iran would work hand in hand to fight COVID-19 with scientific knowledge.

"Thanks to this volunteer activity, I made many Chinese and Iranian friends," said an Iranian student, who gave his Chinese name Zhuang Zhiyuan and is a junior in the department of Chinese at Peking University.

Fluent in Chinese, he is also a vlogger on leading Chinese video-sharing platform Bilibili and adept at video editing, so his primary contribution is adding Persian subtitles and video production.

"They (the team members) work very hard. Some of them stay up late to do the things, and some of them learned to video edit specially for this purpose," the Iranian student said. "I want to express thanks to all of our team members and for the support from Chinese people and government."

The staff of Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education arranges boxes of masks donated by China in Tehran, Iran

"I hope that we can get through all the difficulties soon and hope that the friendship between our two countries will last forever," he said in a video from Xinhua News Agency.

According to Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education, at least 354 people have died from novel coronavirus infection as of Wednesday.

A total of 9,000 people have been affected by the disease, of whom 2,959 have recovered, the IRNA quoted Kianush Jahanpur, head of Public Relations and Information Center of the ministry, as saying.

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PKU Student Connects China & Iran in the Fight Against COVID-19

Photo: Xinhua News Agency, CGTN

Designer: Pu Hairui

Source: CGTN