Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Zoe Guanlan's Sisters.wmv
| Zoë Guanlan’s Sisters, is the story of an American family’s efforts to help poor young girls in rural China break the cycle of poverty by getting an education. This isn’t just any family, Vilma, Tom and Zoë Guanlan are a “global family.” Dr. Vilma Seeberg is German by birth, a naturalized citizen who works as a professor of education at Kent State University, has lived and worked in China, is fluent in Chinese and has written two groundbreaking books about literacy and education in China. Dr. Seeberg’s husband, Tom Jacobs, is African-American and an EMMY award-winning, veteran television producer. Their adopted daughter, Zoë Guanlan, born in Suzhou, China, in 1998 is an energetic, happy nine year old. In 2000, Vilma and her family were in China for an international conference. She heard about the difficulties girls in rural villages were having in getting the education they longed for. Determined to help, she returned to the states and established a scholarship fund named for her daughter. With the assistance of colleagues at Shaanxi Normal University, for the past 6 years, the Guanlan Scholarship has been paying school fees for 20 girls in the village of Zhang Cai, Shangzhou County, in rural northwest China. In the fall of 2004, Vilma undertook a research trip to rural northwest China. This video is a look at some of what she and the family saw. She and her family visited 16 schools and explored the challenges facing girls who wanted an education. The highlight of the trip for the family came in Shangzhou County where they met the Guanlan scholarship girls. Zoë Guanlan’s Sisters chronicles their journey. | |
