It is a name that does not seem to be familiar to the general public, but it has gained fame among teenagers.

The Changier huts have become happy classrooms in schools.

It is its dream to create tens of thousands Changier huts and benefit millions of people.

Over the past 13 years, it has quietly become an important non-governmental force in China's youth HIV/AIDS prevention and education.

——China Newsweek's Annual Public Interest Watchman Award Prize Citation

NO.1  Since there is no escape, then we need to face it.

Thirteen years ago, Zhang Yinjun was still working in the magazine of the Ministry of Public Health.

For her work, she often went to various departments of the hospital to do relevant survey and interview with doctors.

Once she met a female doctor in the obstetrics and gynaecology department.

She just had an induced abortion for a twelve-year-old girl.

The girl came with her school bag and went back to school after the operation.

It happened that this doctor also had a twelve-year-old girl, and she was sad and said that seeing this girl, she remembered her own child.

Zhang Yinjun said that she has also seen advertisements of induced abortion from medical institutions, showing off how quick and convenient of this operation: "just have a nice sleep", "as normal as a cold", "a few eggs are enough to rebuild your body". One of the slogans goes like this.

Patient: "Doctor, have you started?" ”

Doctor: "It's all done."

Zhang Yinjun felt her heart breaking. These children will grow up and become future mothers, and no one tells them that how much pain will bring to their future love, marriage, and childbirth by their behaviors now. What is particularly outrageous is that there are many medical institutions that  advertises painless abortions while accepting infertility patients on a large scale.

Zhang Yinjun was also a researcher at the Eastern Life Institute of the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences. She undertook a dean's fund project "Intervention and Research on College Students' Suicide Factors", and found that a considerable number of college students' suicides are related to relations and gender. One female college students committed suicide because she suspected that she was infected HIV and could not withstand the psychological pressure.

Zhang Yinjun could foresee that if parents, schools and society do not pay attention to the affective education of teenagers in time, the problems and consequences that would bring to the future society would be profound and unimaginable.

Since there is no escape, then we need to face it.

Because the responsibility is not on others, the responsibility is on me.

Zhang Yinjun said that if you want to protect your children, you need to turn the people around you into healthy people with good behaviors. If social problems are not addressed and the social environment does not change, our children will still be affected by others, since they are not be able to  righteous alone in a community.

Zhang Yinjun consulted a large number of materials and found that there is a familiar and sound name shining through the history of contemporary sex education in China, that is our beloved Premier Zhou Enlai.

During the National Health Science and Technology Planning Conference in March 1963, Premier Zhou pointing out to more than a dozen medical experts such as Ye Gongshao and Wu Jieping, that "We should teach adolescent girls and boys about sexual hygiene", and “these sexual knowledge should be taught before girls have menstruate and before boys lose sperm for the first time.”

Even in his sickbed, Premier Zhou did not give up his concern about sex education.

In April 1973, during his illness, he instructed Professor Wu Jieping, who was by his side, to see how the textbooks were being drafted and to find out how the sex education was going on.

He reiterated after 3 months: “It was very important for the young people to have the knowledge of physiology and hygiene. ... The issue should not be avoided, otherwise it not only may be mystified, it may also bring undesirable consequences.”

Until 1975, when Premier Zhou was critically ill, he still kept thinking about the education of physiology and hygiene for the young people and instructed to do it well.

In 1992, professor Wu Jieping, over 70 years old, went especially to Tianjin to give advice and suggestions on a sex education program of Tianjin TV named “Whisper”.

In 2004, it was the last time for the 87-year-old man to attend a national sex education seminar in Tianjin. Zhang Yinjun, the former executive editor of Chinese Journal of Human Sexuality, were also at the seminar. Prof. Wu told Ms. Wang Guizhi, the founder of the program before he left, “although the solid ice has been broken and the route has been opened, there is still a long way to go...”

Sex education for young people not only was a wish that Premier Zhou mentioned to him many times, but also became his lifelong responsibility.

After talked in depth with Prof. Wu Jieping and Wang Guizhi, Zhang Yinjun made a surprising decision. She resigned and left the Ministry of Public Health, and founded the AIDS Prevention Education Project for Chinese Youth (APEPCY).

If I am not strong, who will be strong for me?”, she thought to herself.

Since then, this mother and woman’s life had become different after devoting herself to the cause of AIDS prevention with a love heart.

NO.2 Just like building a mansion on the beach

She started from zero.

She started out with public health, but found out that schools should be the main place for  students to have their sex education. Schools are under that authorization of Ministry of Education. So she turned to education, only to find out that AIDS education was one of the responsibilities of the Ministry of Public Health.

The overwhelming majority of school managers kept distance as soon as they heard words like "sex education" and "AIDS". Some even said: "we will not do it even if you give us money!".

01

In the past more than ten years, Zhang Yinjun has heard many noises, “what on earth are you doing?" ... "It is like building a mansion on the beach!"

There was a story of Confucius traveling around the China.

On an early summer morning, a horse carriage was hurrying on with its journey through the mist. The old man on the carriage in his 60s was Confucius, the greatest teacher in Chinese history.

A farmer was sitting on the side of his field. When he saw the carriage he said, “is that Mr. Kong who has been traveling around the world for the ideal life of mankind? Now the world is in chaos. As a learned person, shouldn’t you cherish yourself the same as a phoenix cherishes its beautiful feathers? Why should you put yourself in this mess?”

The love education, either AIDS prevention, sexual health and mental health, or the cultivation of good course concept and traditional culture education, is a project for laying solid moral, mental and physical base for young people.

Teach young people from their early ages how to look at life, how to deal with relationship with the other gender, with others, with society and with ancestors; to help them set up correct outlook to value, the world and life; and to teach them how to be a person, do things well, behave themselves; let more children get the education and inspiration to be a complete personality.

Finally, Zhang Yinjun met Mr. Gu Mingyuan, the former president of the Chinese Society of Education.

Mr. Gu asked: “Have you really decided to do this?”

Mrs. Zhang answered: “I have a mother and a child. Like everyone, I yearn for a easy life. However, if love education does not be introduced to the campus, into the classrooms, young people's life may deviate from the right direction. Because it is urgent and many people are unwilling or not dare to do it, that we need to work so hard.”

How embarrassed one feels, he must face it eventually; how much one wants to evade, he has to face the problems.

Maybe this is what Confucius said about “benevolence and love”.

Gu was touched by the great heart of a little girl: “Since you are brave enough to shoulder the moral responsibility, I will support APEPCY as long as I can help.”

Gu said: “we have a misconception that when it comes to sex, we regard it is for sexual behavior, and that sex education is the education of sexual behavior. At present, there are few positive media reports on sex education, but many negative ones. The first issue we need to address is the wrong concepts, and the next one is the system. The students need to be educated at all levels, beginning with  kindergarten, followed by primary school, middle school and high school.”

Gu was a man of his word. It has been 13 years since he served as the head of the leading group of APEPCY in 2006. In 2019, he still attended the Conference of AIDS Prevention and Sexual Health Education in Schools and Teaching Demonstration of Changier Seeded Teachers held in Linzhou, Henan Province. 90-year old Gu smiled brightly when he heard brilliant answers from children.

02

For 13 years, Zhang Yinjun has led the team to overcome unimaginable difficulties and solve countless problems. Turning around, she sees “the mansion on the beach” is taken shape.

In 2006, APEPCY was launched at China Charity Federation, and Bai Yansong was appointed as the first image ambassador.

In 2007, the APEPCY CCTV Warm Spring 2007 was launched. Over 100 media signed the Proposal of National Press Supporting APEPCY. In the same year, the first Changier Hut in China was set up in Fushun, Liaoning.

In 2008, after the Wenchuan earthquake, the "Joint Action for Post-disaster Psychological Assistance for Teenagers" was launched. A permanent psychological assistance team was established, which has lasted for 11 years.

In 2009, the "1+1 Heart to Heart Action" was given the "Outstanding Contribution Award of China Charity" by the China Charity Federation. Oriental Horizon, CCTV News, and FOCUS ON reported this event.

In 2012, Changier Hut won the grand prize of "Responsibility in China behind the Lens". Zhang Yinjun participated in the seventh "China Charity Award".

In 2014, Premier Li Keqiang and Vice Premier Liu Yandong made important instructions to APEPCY.

In 2015, Zhang Yinjun won the "Top Ten People in Healthy China", and APEPCY won the "Person of the Year Affecting China - Watcher of Public Interest" award.

In 2016, the APEPCY online was established.

In 2017, Zhang Yinjun participated in the "61st Session of the Commission on the Status of Women" held in United Nations Headquarters in New York. In the same year, Kang Hui was invited as the second image ambassador of APEPCY.

In 2019, Beijing Changier Education Foundation was granted special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

By June 30th, 2019, APEPCY had built 1073 Changier Huts in university campuses, schools and kindergartens in 26 provinces in China, set up 16 project bases and 23 workstations, trained more than 9000 teachers, rescued more than 30000 children and adolescents; and benefited more than 13.4 million students, teachers and parents.

However, after 13 years of effort, we still catch our breath when we take a look at the latest data of 2018 released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Health Commission.

About 15% of all HIV-infected in China are young people aged 15-24. The net annual growth rate of young students (15-24) infected with AIDS virus reached 35%, its number increased from 482 in 2008 to 3105 in 2018, 65% of which were infected during college.

Among the young student cases reported in 2018, male homosexual transmission accounted for 82.1%.

There are 9 million induced abortions every year, and more than 50% of them are female teenagers under the age of 25.

Some people ask that we have been working so hard for the course of love education of young people, but the result may not be as optimistic as we hope. What is the problem?

Bai Yansong said: “We may not see the effect when we do it, but we will definitely see the bad consequences if we do not do it.”

03

Someone asked her: “How do you look at your 13 years of effort?”

Zhang Yinjun said that it is easy to do a good deed, but it is not easy to persist in doing it, do it happily and decisively.

In fact, we have experienced all kinds of setbacks and internal and external troubles in the past 13 years, both physically and mentally, felt exhausted, wronged, misunderstood, confused and hopeless.

However, responsibility and ability are complementary. The greater the ability, the greater the responsibility. In turn, the greater the responsibility, the more powerful we shall become.

Why do we always draw our attention only when tragedy repeats, and then continue to be apathetic?

The education of love for young people is to turn off the tap of AIDS and pay attention to the healthy growth of young people from the source. This is a project to take precautions.

“Or, have you ever been to a Changier Hut?”

If you see that there are AIDS prevention courses even in the southwest border of China; even children from families affected by drugs and AIDS can afford to go to school; if you find that Changier Huts all over the country can protect the healthy growth of a generation of young people; and if you feel a kind of love for children rising from the bottom of your heart, just as to your own children, you will certainly look with a smile.