Xu Lingna | Let more foreign friends stay in Shanghai, integrate into Shanghai, and love Shanghai TEC | Foreigners | Shanghai

As a member of the first "Hongqiao Friendship Alliance", Xu Lingna has been working and living in Shanghai for 26 years. Compared to the title of "Foreign Service Project Manager of Shanghai Aimanjia Family Service Center", foreign nationals in Shanghai are more familiar with her identity as "TEC President". As an influential social activist and philanthropist in the Shanghai international community, Xu Lingna from Singapore has been running on the front line of telling the stories of China and Shanghai for many years, conveying the concept of "here is home" to the international community in Shanghai and even the whole society, and using practical actions to help thousands of foreigners stay in Shanghai, integrate into Shanghai, and love Shanghai.

Pay attention to the urban development of Shanghai

Shanghai Aimanjia Family Service Center was established in 2014, and Xu Lingna was invited by the organization to serve as the president. In 2018, she founded the "Foreigner Center" project and served as the leader. "Building a home far away from home" is her operational philosophy for TEC, aimed at promoting cultural integration and exchange between China and foreign countries, and providing assistance and services for foreigners and their families working and living in Shanghai.

TEC's service area includes helping to solve the urgent and difficult issues faced by foreign nationals upon their arrival in Shanghai, such as work permits and residence permits, as well as tax and foreign-related legal and policy consulting needs. In order to help foreign nationals stay and integrate into Shanghai for a long time, TEC also provides training courses and public lectures on language and culture, medical and health, and children's education. It holds more than 50 various activities every year and participates in more than 8000 foreign nationals.

Under the leadership of Xu Lingna, TEC actively helps foreign nationals achieve employment, leading the "Entrepreneurship, Employment, and Development" three industry exchange conference for three consecutive years. Nearly 600 institutions and enterprises have provided nearly a thousand employment opportunities for job seekers from more than 30 countries and regions.

Over the years, Xu Lingna has led TEC to actively interact with the CPC Friendship Association, participate in and hold Chinese and foreign folk exchange activities, and jointly held activities such as "Never forget the original intention on the centennial birthday - Chinese and foreign friends' families in Shanghai to celebrate the centennial of the founding of the Communist Party of China".

Xu Lingna has long been concerned about the urban development of Shanghai and actively provides suggestions for economic and social development. She has been invited twice to participate in the "Face to Face Symposium with the District Party Secretary" activity, actively providing suggestions and jointly drawing blueprints for the development plan of the 14th Five Year Plan. Last year, she also participated in legislative research on "Shanghai Accessible Environment Construction" and "Shanghai International Communication Language Environment Construction" by the Municipal People's Congress. This year, she actively invited the United Nations Development System Coordinator in China, Chang Qide, to Shanghai to discuss the ten-year action of "how to use public and individual cooperation to accelerate sustainable development goals" with chambers of commerce in various countries.

Actively engage in public welfare

For many years in China, Xu Lingna has been actively involved in public welfare. Since 2018, she has led the annual New Year Charity Dinner and Charity Golf Competition, gathering thousands of caring individuals to raise nearly 10 million yuan in donations to nearly 10 charitable organizations in Shanghai. During the extremely heavy rainstorm in Zhengzhou, she personally contributed 100000 yuan to the special action of "rescue Henan" given to the Municipal Charity Foundation through the Shanghai Friendship Association. She also led a charity project in collaboration with 3M Company, donating 1000 air purifiers to hospitals, schools, and centenarians in Shanghai.

As early as 2012, Xu Lingna established a special poverty alleviation project and has fully funded more than 60 children from impoverished mountainous areas in Sichuan to enter the classroom so far. In recent years, she has actively responded to the rural revitalization strategy, practiced and cultivated the "second generation of friends", carried out the "Children's Public Welfare Character Camp" activity for five consecutive years, organized more than 50 children from the Shanghai International Community to go to villages in Honghezhou, Yunnan, and taught nearly 70 ethnic minority children, deepening the friendship between Chinese and foreign children.

On this basis, Xu Lingna actively coordinated with all parties to establish a special poverty alleviation fund. In September 2022, TEC, together with the Shanghai Volunteer Service Public Welfare Foundation and the Shanghai Yicai Feiyang Foundation, launched the "Assisting Welfare Special Fund" with an investment of nearly one million yuan, dedicated to providing medical, disability, education, elderly and other services to impoverished and vulnerable groups.

Currently, a mini program called "TEC Assistance" has gained some popularity among foreigners in Shanghai. This is an innovative online public welfare practice independently developed by Xu Lingna and her TEC team. It is a bilingual volunteer public welfare platform that connects individual volunteers, caring enterprises, and beneficiaries. It is also the first bilingual volunteer service online public welfare platform in Shanghai in both Chinese and English. As of now, there have been over 60 registered public welfare projects and nearly 800 registered volunteers for TEC Assistance.

At the beginning of the 2020 epidemic, Xu Lingna personally invested more than 800000 yuan to raise more than 100000 medical epidemic prevention items overseas, and gifted them to more than 70 institutions such as Huashan Hospital. Last April, TEC donated approximately 60000 diapers and 1800 bags of baby fruit puree and other supplies to major pediatric hospitals in Shanghai. During the epidemic, Xu Lingna also led the establishment of Shanghai's first one-stop all English epidemic information service center for foreigners in Shanghai, providing policy guidance, self-protection and other information. She led the creation of the TEC Psychological Care Bilingual Platform in 2020, which currently provides over 1000 online and offline services, helping foreign friends in Shanghai to continuously integrate into Shanghai and build consensus.