Y. C. James Yen

Y. C. James Yen

Y.C. James Yen (Chinese: 晏阳初 Yan Yangchu, 1890-1990). Yen, known to his many English speaking friends as "Jimmy," was a Chinese educator and organizer known for his work in mass literacy and rural reconstruction, first in China, then in many countries. After working with Chinese laborers in France during World War I, in the 1920s Yen first organized the National Association of Mass Education Movements to bring literacy to the Chinese masses, then turned to the villages of China to organize Rural Reconstruction, most famously at Ding Xian, (or, in the spelling of the time, Ting Hsien), a county in Hebei, from 1926-1937. He was instrumental in founding the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction in 1948, which then moved to Taiwan. After 1949, Dr. Yen organized the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement and the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction. He returned to China in the 1980s but died in New York in 1990.