Success always comes after many hardships and difficulties. I have no regrets!

Wang Shuxia was deprived of the right to go to university because she was too short. Refusing to be cowed down, she pursued her dreams, and in 1997 became a volunteer distributor of Peasant Women, a magazine to promote new thoughts and ideas in rural China. In August 2004, she founded a local women's association for the protection of women's rights and led the setting-up of cooperative groups for fruit-planting peasants to help them cooperate and coordinate for their rights.

Born December 1961, Wang Shuxia is from Fenyang, Shanxi Province. She was deprived of the right to go to university for an absurd reason beyond her comprehension, but did not give up the pursuit of her dreams. In 1995, she heard about a magazine called Peasant Women. She helped to disseminate the ideas in this publication. Some years later, in 2003, she met Dr. Wen Tiejun and, attracted by his theories of peasant cooperation, she decided to dedicate herself to this, starting with her home village. A year later, in 2004, she founded a local women’s association whose members include many men, and whose members have gone up from 26 to 140. In the same year she helped to establish cooperative groups of fruit-planting peasants. Although cooperation is not a familiar concept among peasants, Wang believes it is the only way to develop. She does not deny that it is fraught with difficulties, but is convinced that success follows hardship. Wang has been an inspiration to many around her, including her female friends and her husband. She believes strongly that women hold up half the sky and she wants all her women friends to proclaim this. She has sacrificed a great deal for her public activities but she always says: "I have no regrets!"

Lijiazhuang Women's Association and Fruit growers' Association Peasant Women magazine