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Wu Qing
Founder,Beijing Cultural Development Center for Rural Women
Professor Wu Qing was born in 1937. She is the youngest daughter of renowned Chinese author, Bingxin. She is also a well-known English Language Professor in China, teaching English on CCTV from 1977 to 1979. She is an active leader of the women’s rights and human rights in China. Professor Wu was the first People’s Deputy to use the Chinese Constitution, the first to set aside Tuesday afternoon to meet with constituents and the first to report her work to those who have voted her. She upholds rule of law, democracy, oversight and transparency.
Professor Wu Qing had been teaching the English Language for 40 years from 1960-2000. Before she retired, she was teaching English and American Studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University. During her term in the university, she was conferred Excellent Professor Award, Excellent Teacher Award twice from the Municipality of Beijing and Margaret Turner Award for Best Teacher teaching basics many times. From 1977 – 1979, she was seconded to China Central Television (CCTV) to host the English on TV program and English on Sunday program, televised throughout China.
Since the mid 1980s, Professor Wu Qing has been actively promoting human rights and women’s rights. She was a member of Women’s Studies Forum, English Department, Beijing Foreign Studies University, from 1986 – 1995. Beginning 1989, she served as a gender specialist with the Canadian International Development Agency. Thereafter, she has done many projects for the Canadian executing companies in China, being a member of several inception missions, designing gender plans and strategies, offering gender training, doing project evaluation and etc. She has been highly successful in promoting women’s rights and sensitizing both women and men in those projects.
From 1993-2006, Professor Wu Qing was an adviser to Rural Women Knowing All magazine; a board member of Zhongze Women’s Legal Aid Center, based in Beijing since 1998 (originally called Beijing University Women’s Law Studies and Legal Service Center); board chair of Beijing Cultural Development Center for Rural Women based in Beijing from 2001-2005, a board member since 2006; a board member of the Global Fund for Women from 1996 –2002, based in San Francisco, U.S.A.; since 1994, she has taken on the roles of an adviser, vice-president and president, now a board member of Women’s World Summit Foundation based in Geneva, Switzerland; a board member of Gender Action since 2005, based in Washington D.C., U.S.A., a board member of the Center for Asia Pacific Women in Politics since 2005, based in Manila, the Philippines; a board member of Oxfam, Hong Kong from 2004-2006; a member of the International Jury of the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education for the Asia and the Pacific region, based in Paris, France, from 2006 – 2010; a member of External Gender Forum of Asia Development Bank based in Manila, the Philippines from 2003 -2009, She became a People’s Deputy (a legislator) to the Haidian People’s Congress in 1984. Since then she has been elected seven times and now she is serving her seventh term at District level. She was put forward by her peer deputies as a candidate at Haidian People’s Congress and elected four times to the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress from 1988 to 2007. She is truly and democratically elected by her constituents and has been regarded as “the Deputy with the Constitution” by the media in China.
In recognizing Professor Wu Qing’s great contribution in the field of China Women’s Rights and Rule of Law in the People’s Republic of China, the Philippine government awarded her the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service in 2001, which is regarded as the Asian Version of Nobel Prize. In 2002, Professor Wu Qing was nominated by the Schwab Foundation Network as one of the World’s Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs of 2003. She was chosen by the public as one of the twenty people who cared about the rights of peasants in China in 2002. She got an award from China Children’s Publishing House in 2006 for the translation of “Peter Rabbit Series.” Wu Qing was as one of the “Outstanding Individual of 2007” in founding a school for rural women in 2008, chosen by Education Committee, Changping District, Beijing. She was chosen as one of the “Top Cover Personality” by the Chinese Senior Citizens’ magazine at its 25th anniversary in 2008.
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