The Cultural Development Center for Rural Women is a non government organization that seeks to promote the social development of China's rural women. Since its foundation ten years ago it has grown from its core activity of publishing the magazine Rural Women (formerly Rural Women Knowing All) to become major non-profit organization with an integrated program that “supports the poor by combining development projects, news media and information services, and dissemination of the results of research.”

Our practice is aimed at creating opportunities for self-empowerment and development together with rural women—we care about rural women's lives in the poorest parts of China, and we are also dedicated to improving quality of life for migrant women in China's cities. We create opportunities for rural women to receive re-education and training, including young women who dropped out of formal education, and we strive to raise rural women's skill levels and to enhance their participation in politics.

In all our activities we seek to advocate awareness of gender and citizenship, and we aspire to maintain a dedication to openness, democracy and participation in all our work.

Our areas of focus:
Strengthen rural women's community participation
Raise rural women's ability and opportunity to participate in politics
Help to establish a system to prevent rural women's suicide
Reproductive health
Improve poor rural women's quality of life
Provide opportunities of study for girl dropouts aged between 16-18
Uphold migrant women's civil and labor rights
Enhance the social space for migrant women's development

Our projects:
Rural women's community development
We are committed to creating chances for rural women to participate fully in community development. Since Rural Women began publication in 1993 we have made efforts to build rural women's capacity for development and improve their participation in communities through a series of projects, including microfinance, literacy classes, and projects aimed at enhancing reproductive health, preventing of suicide and increasing participation in politics.

Rural women's training and re-education
We set up the Practical Skill Training Center for Rural Women in 1998, the first center in China aimed at raising the overall capacity of rural women instead of merely training them for a diploma. As well as offering training in practical skills, we have also focused on raising trainees' awareness of gender, citizenship, participatory and people-oriented concepts. Whether the trainees are grassroots women leaders or poor dropout girls, the contents of their courses are designed to tap their potential, increase their self-confidence and self-reliance and to help them to realize their dream of taking an active part in community development, escaping poverty and achieving a well-off life.

Legal services for migrant women's
We set up the “Migrant Women's Club” in 1996, the first to serve migrant workers in China. The club was organized on participatory principles and the concept of migrant women's self-empowerment. It works to uphold migrant women workers' legal rights and interests, and is also concerned with their spiritual well-being, their overall quality of life and their capacity for self-improvement.

Publications and disseminating experience
Through service and practice, we are dedicated to exploring innovation in service provision in rural women's development, and in learning and sharing the lessons of our many years of experience in our work. We have already compiled four sets of teaching materials for literacy classes -- Rural Teenage Girls' Basic Reader, Manual for Preventing Rural Women's Suicide and others -- as well as more than 20 books on the study of rural women's development, including Rural Women's Development and Countermeasures, Report on Suicide amongst Rural Women, and The Census Registration System and Female Migrants.

Research and publicity
Themed around the various problems that rural women encounter, we have organized research groups, then sponsored seminars and workshops on these issues. These then formed the basis for further survey and investigation and produced suggestions for policy changes that we brought to the attention of the government and the media. We have already sponsored two seminars on Rural Women Development and Countermeasures, two seminars on Migrant Women's Legal Rights and two seminars on Rural Women's Participation in Politics as well as many other workshops, discussion meetings and news releases. Those who are concerned about rural women, donors and our supporters have quick and easy access to information about our work and achievements through our newsletter Seeds and our website.

Our advantages:
  Through editing and publishing Rural Women magazine, we understand the most pressing development needs of rural women and can respond quickly to them with our work.
  We are an integrated organization including a magazine, a training center, an agency for supporting migrant women's legal rights and a project center, thus we are able to provide a comprehensive service.
  We seek to serve the needs of rural women throughout China, and we have good relationships with numerous partners to cooperate in achieving our goals. Moreover, we can publicize project achievements and share models for rural women's development through our own magazine and by using our excellent relationship with other media institutions.