Selia’s Project – Raising Awareness of Illegal Marriages in China
For those of you who know me, I’m the guy who went to China as the father of one, and came back as the father of six. Words cannot really express the way that I bonded with these young leaders, but I love them and am committed to helping them be all that they can be.
As part of their commitment to the World Academy for the Future of Women, all World Academy members develop a project that addresses one of the eight UN Millenium Development Goals (MDGs):
Selia Wang is a World Academy member and student at Sias International University. Her project is designed to raise awareness about illegal marriages in China. Rather than me telling you all about her project, I’ll let her work speak for itself.
Here’s a note that I received from Selia, giving me the latest update on her project, along with the attached pics.
Dear friends,
This letter is to show my sincere thanks to all the supporters of my project and keep you informed of where my project is.
Thanks to the generous donation from Robert Ford and Kathy Palokoff, I got to use part of that money to print 20 nine-page big posters to bring back to the villages when I went back home to apply for a passport last weekend.
I spent two of the five hours I got to stay with my family putting these posters. Attached are some photos and the documentary of my poster. It is the wheat harvesting season,like what it shows in photo 1428, every adult is working like a bee on the farm.So I didn’t get any tall men to help me. But I did have five cute kids help me( actually they are my nephews and nieces). We put 20 posters not only in my villages but also in 6 other neighbour villages, especially primary schools.
On my train back home, I was sitting with two college students and a man who is in his fifties. I started the topic about illegal marriages. The two college cannot agree more with what I am doing now. When I asked the man who is in his fifties about his opinion, he thinks what I am doing is very meaningful, But later what he said makes me feel there is long way to go with the illegal marriage project.
He said that sometimes they see the harm of the illegal marriages. But when their children quit school, whey they are 17 or 18, they are very eager to have their son or daughter to get married. If not, other neighbour must think there is something wrong with the son or daughter that no one wants to marry her or him. And they think people should get married first and then start a career.
I realise it is so hard to change the way people think, or to change the idea who was in their mind when they were born.
As now teenagers tend to be more independent and their parents cannot force them do anything now, I am thinking to put more focus on the middle school and high school students. If we could get them educated about the harm of illegal marriages, whether they quit school or nor?definitely we want to encourage them to continue school?, they could try to avoid illegal marriages consciously.
I am going to ask for more new academy members to join my project next semester to make the team stronger.
Nine final for me to come through next two weeks, so I will not put any focus on illegal marriages in the next three weeks to get excellent scores.
Thanks again for all of your support.
With lots of appreciation
Selia
