Our History

The founder of Sunvillage, Shuqin Zhang, used to work as a journalist and wrote about prison related issues. She was also a Class One supervisor within the Chinese prison system herself. Working in this field over the course of years, she experienced the harsh realities for children of convicts first hand. These children were left to fed themselves and often had no choice, but to start begging or turning towards crime. A proper education and a normal life were out of reach for them, as they were constantly suffering from hunger, disease and loneliness.

Seeing this agony was particulary painful for Shuqin, as she was the mother of a child herself. Consequently, in 1996 she decided to give up her career in public service in order to help these children.  In Shaanxi Province, she founded the first Sunvillage. This should turn out to be the start of a huge success story, that would go on to change the life of many children.

Only due to her charisma, her problem-tackling vibe and her persistence it was possible to brave the immense pressure and put her vision into reality. By providing care for the children, Shuqin hopes that she can help to increase the peace of mind of many convicts during their time in prison. However, her key aim is that the children grow up into educated, valuable members of society, rather than becoming a burden themselves. In collaboration with many volunteers and donators, Shuqin proceeded to establish 8 additional children villages all over China in the past years. We currently feed, educate and raise more than 500 children. Until today, we have saved more than 5,000 children. On top of that, about 3.000 children of convicts, who don’t live in one of our villages, currently receive financial support from us.