From nanny to mentor, a path of empowerment

From model workers and master craftsmen to factory hands and gig-economy workers, China's vast workforce is the bedrock of national development. Launched by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, this series shines a spotlight on the responsibility and resilience of the modern Chinese working class, documenting their struggles and stories from the front lines to showcase the dedication, craftsmanship and pioneering spirit driving progress across every sector.

Wang Rongrong still remembers how her hands trembled like a sieve the first time she cradled an infant — a moment of raw nerves she has carried from her 2015 debut as a nanny to the seasoned caregiver she is today.

Wang, now a home-care trainer at Kangsao, a domestic service agency in Shaanxi province, didn't take the usual route into this work. In 2001, she dropped out after junior high to ease her family's burden, spending those hard years washing dishes, picking cocoons in a silk mill, guiding shoppers in a department store, and hawking goods at night-market stalls — all for a little more money at month's end.

In 2014, Wang had her darkest hour. Widowed by illness, she was left with 400,000 yuan ($59,630) in debt and a son not yet 3 years old. Then a text from a village official changed everything: a free maternity-nanny training course.

In class, Wang was always the first to arrive and the last to leave. She practiced infant massage on training dummies until her knuckles swelled, then rehearsed diaper changes on a pillow at night. That determination carried her to a perfect score on the certification exam — and a job as a maternity nanny at Kangsao.

But the profession greeted her with skepticism. "Clients shook their heads when they saw how young I was," she said. So she offered three days of free service: home-cooked postpartum meals, newborn massage and late-night calls answered without complaint. When she spotted a baby's stiff neck, she urged the family to seek a checkup and then helped treat it with massage over the following three months — despite repetitive-strain injuries to her hands — after this, doubt turned to trust.

Four years on the front line brought zero complaints, more than 30 families served, a perfect satisfaction record and walls lined with banners. "Domestic work isn't just muscle," Wang said. "It's skill. It's a conscience: you give your heart to it, and it gives you back."

In 2020, Wang won gold at the national vocational skills competition for poverty alleviation and became the only household services worker nationwide to be honored as a National Technical Expert.

In 2021, she traded her nanny bag for a lectern. "My legs were shaking during that first class. By the end, my whole back was soaked with sweat," Wang said. She practiced voice projection on open hillsides, recruited family members as stand-in students and reviewed recordings of her own lessons until she had corrected every habit.

Then she developed her own teaching method: rural women received nutrition instruction in local dialect over postpartum meals, while college-educated trainees studied case studies in infant psychology. She took her lesson plans to more than 10 underdeveloped villages in Ankang, Shaanxi, hosting classes on hillsides and in front yards. Mothers learned skills there, no longer forced to leave their children behind to earn a living.

In 2024, answering the call to support Xizang, Wang traveled to Ngari prefecture, at an altitude of 4,500 meters. There, altitude sickness and language barriers eventually gave way to mobile tent classrooms in yak-hair tents and the establishment of the region's first domestic-service agency. Later, 20 graduates from Xizang showed Wang their gratitude, saying she had "opened a window in their tent to the world". Their monthly incomes rose from less than 2,000 to 4,500 yuan. By 2025, Wang had trained more than 8,000 students and helped more than 2,000 secure jobs.

"Seeing my trainees lift themselves up with their own hands, I realize the night-market girl in me finally became her own light," Wang said.

Beyond running training programs, Wang is also committed to making domestic services smarter and more precise through technology. She championed the launch of the "Ankang housekeeper" digital platform, equipped with virtual reality simulations of home environments, real-time tracking of service workflows and artificial intelligence-powered matching of client needs.

Wang has turned her national skills master studio into far more than a training base — it now serves as an innovation incubator for the home-service industry. By logging data at every stage of execution for clients, caregivers and partners, and feeding it into big-data systems and smart algorithms, she is helping raise service standards and build a model that can be rapidly replicated online.

"Technology is just a tool; craftsmanship is the soul," Wang said. "Only when roots run deep will the blossoms last long."