Selia's posters on illegal marriages

Life is about change.

生命需要改变

1, What is Illegal Marriages?

According to the law, the legal marriage age in China for men is 22, for women is 20. Any people who get married before the legal marriage age, their marriages are called illegal marriages which are not protected by law.

1，什么是不合法婚姻？

根据法律规定，中华人民共和国公民合法婚龄男性为22岁，女性为20岁。未到达法定婚龄的人结婚，其婚姻不受法律保护，为不合法婚姻。

2, Why is illegal marriages a problem?

A, The young are not mature enough to get married and not ready to have babies.

B, The education of parents have such a great influence on their children.

C, What great opportunity you will lose if get married so early?

D, How unprotected the women would be when one of the couple especially their husbands betray the marriages?

2，不合法婚姻有哪些危害？

（1）年轻人发育不够成熟，不能很好地抚养自己的孩子。

（2）父母受教育程度对孩子的成长有很大的影响。

（3）过早结婚，年轻人失误了很多追逐自己人生梦想的机会。

（4）在不合法婚姻中，夫妻当中任何一方尤其是章法背叛婚姻，那么女方的权益将收不到任何的法律保护。

This is the school in our village.

这是我们村的学校。

This is Henan Provincial Library. The parents take their children to the reading class every week.

这是河南省图书馆，这些孩子的父母每周都带他们去阅读室。

Why are these such a difference?

为什么会有这么大的差别呢？

The answer must be: Education.

教育可以改变一切。

（1） Our kids' parents were all the illegal marriages suffers. Our kids parents all quit school when they were 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Our kids' parents could even not read.

我们的孩子的父母都是不合法婚姻的受害者。我们的孩子的父母都在12,13,14,15,16.岁的时候就辍学了。我们的孩子的父母甚至都不识字。

Those kids' parents got married when they got to the legal marriage age. Those kids' parents went to college. Those kids' parents read books to them.

（2） Our kids parents quit school and went to work in a factory.

我们的孩子的父母早早的辍学外出打工。

Those kids' parents were working so hard to pass the college entrance exam.

那些孩子的父母勤奋苦读备战高考。

 (3) Then our kids were born. And their parents will spend their whole life on the farm.

然后他们就回来就婚生子，然后在农村里种一辈子地。

They went to college and live a completely different life.

而他们考上了大学过着另一种截然不同的生活。

（4）Our life will always be the same, end of adventure.

我们的生活将会从此一成不变。

Their life just started...

他们的生活才刚刚开始······

Whose life do you want to live?

你想过哪一种生活？

It is never too late!

一切都还不晚。

Encourage and support every kid to go to school and continue school.

鼓励并支持每个孩子上学并完成学业。

Regard illegal marriages as a social issue instead of a custom.

不合法婚姻是一种严重的社会问题而不是大家习以为常的风俗。

Start changing now and you know what you really want.

从现在起开始改变，你知道你真正想要的是什么生活。

                 World Academy for the Future of Women

                     世界女性未来发展学院

                             2012年6月3日

Selia's letter of appreciation to everyone who is helping her with her project

Selia is working on a project "Illegal Marriages in China", which focused on the consequences of illegal (young) marraiges in China.  She has taken on this project on her own and it has earned her a potetnial internship with a foundation in Irvine, CA in January 29013.  Below is a letter she recently sent to many of us.

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 finals 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
Sweet Selia love everyone who has come to my life!
Selia Wang ( Wang Min 王敏)
Email: sweetselia@yahoo.cn

BridgetKellyinChina: Lots has been going on with Selia

BridgetKellyinChina: Lots has been going on with Selia: A lot has been going on for Selia over the last two week.   She won a partial scholarship ($500) for next academic year which will be a trem...

selia's response to her good fortune

Dear Bridget, Judith, Alan and Sid,

It has been such an incredible experience to just read these emails that are from so many wonderful worldwide leaders talking about me. What is the most important thing is I never know I could be worth so much attention and support. I am so grateful to everything you have done for me which is beyond thanks. I don't know what I could say but I would like to repeat one of Alan's statements: She is worth the investment. as my answer and thank to all these kindness.

Life is always full of surprises. I have been so lucky to be abandoned and adopted, discriminated and admired. As a teenagers or an adult who is 21, I used to think as the rest of people who are in my age that I know everything about life. What turned out to be is I know nothing about life. What I can do is to enrich my life. There are so many thing that I could learn from you all.

Like what I said in my illegal marriages project: Any efforts you make may change others' life. You are changing my life.

My wonderful parents. my dear sister and brother, all of my relatives who have supported me, my primary school friends who are now at home taking acre their family and babies will be absolutely thrilled if I tell them what is happening here. I am not a genius, I am just the one who is so lucky and get the opportunity to go far in the future with all the expectation and burden from my whole village.

As I had told Sid when I met him, when life took away something from you, he will give you something else. While what I have gotten now is far beyond that.

I think Alan is right, it is hard to get a visa, can we meet when you get back to campus, Alan? I know you are pretty busy though.

Thanks again for the internship opportunity you have been thinking about me.

Bridget, thanks for the opportunity you give me to visit the USA.

Judith, you remember everything I need. How can you be so considerate to me?

Sid, it is so nice and generous of you to be a such strong support to me.

Alan, you know everything and can make anything happen, right?

With lots of appreciation to you all.

Lots of love

Selia

Sweet Selia love everyone who has come to my life!

Selia Wang ( Wang Min 王敏)

Email: sweetselia@yahoo.cn

Lots has been going on with Selia

A lot has been going on for Selia over the last two week.  She won a partial scholarship ($500) for next academic year which will be a tremendous relief to her family since her tuition is taking all of their extra cash and then some.

  She continues to talk to me (and anyone who talks to her) about her burning desire to come to the USA.  She wants to come here sometime in the next year. She is hoping to secure either an internship or an acceptance in to a Master’s program.  She has a few colleges in mind (Monterrey Institute of Languages, Georgetown, Arizona State University and a few other places that faculty have mentioned to her. 

As some of you know, she has been sending out a PowerPoint of her project “Illegal Marriages in China.”  It is being well received by all who view it but no one has any solutions to offer her. However, through the efforts of two Sias Board Members, it fell in to the hands of a California organization: The Children and Family Foundation.  This organization has agreed to pay Selia’s full tuition for next year and they have invited her to complete an internship with them in January 2013.  This good fortune was beyond her wildest dreams.

All of this was going on behind the scenes and around the same time that I offered to sponsor a trip to Selia to come to the USA this summer for a month. The more she talked to me about her choices of where she wanted to apply to college, the more I worried about the reality of these choices.  So I offered to fly her over here in July and we will make an East Coast college tour trip. We plan to travel from Virginia to Vermont, stopping at ten colleges along the way that offer graduate programs in translations and foreign policy. This will be a great opportunity for Selia but it will also be great, great fun for me as well.

All of these plans are pending her ability to get a USA visa which is very, very difficult to do.  She has to show that she has honorable intentions, she has the appropriate financial support and she is not planning to sneak in and stay and be a financial burden to all of us.

She got her passport today.  She has a letter from the CA foundation, inviting her to a workshop this summer. She has my letter of financial support. She has a letter from the president of Sias University which states that she is matriculated to return to Sias for the fall semester. She has the visa application completed.  Now she has to make an appointment with the US Embassy in Beijing and go there to be interviewed.  She will be told on the spot whether or not she can come.  And if she can’t get a visa, I am going to be very disappointed.

Olivia's note to me

Olivia writes to me every day. it is usually just a small note but always very sweet.

While I was in china, I introduced her to coffee and she loved it.  so now she calles me her coffe mother. 

Right now, I am sending about twn of the women audio sections of a book which we are listening to together and then we plan to have a skpye call when we finish the book.  Olivia checks in with me every day to let me know that she is current in listening to the book.


Dearest coffee mother ,

great ~~~ Thank you very much~~

Well ,this days , I am about to prepare my final exams,

,I will study more hard than before, I want to get a high score,

I will listen yhem very carefully ,haha ,I also would really love to skype with you,I miss you so much,Thank you for you coffee again ,I really enjoy it .

Have a great day~~

More love ,

Olivia