China implemented their One-Child Policy in 1980 over concerns of their growing populating straining the countries resources. Between 1980 to 2024, over 160,000 Chinese children have been adopted abroad.

Nanchang Project was founded in 2018 to support Chinese adoptees around the globe in searching for their biological families.

2018 — a year of exciting growth and change.

In January 2018, Faith and Erin hired a searcher in Nanchang, Jiangxi, to search for their children’s birth families. After their search was ultimately unsuccessful, they decided to take matters into their own hands, spending late nights chatting and figuring out how to use Chinese social media (specifically Weibo, QQ, and WeChat) to make connections in Nanchang. Their posts begin to go viral in China. This led to our very first match! Faith and Erin quickly realized what an untapped search tool Chinese social media was and, with that, Nanchang Project was formed.

In March they were invited to China to visit Nanchang to speak about their initiative. A press conference was held in their honor, which was covered by both local and national Chinese news organizations.

In the fall of 2018, Faith traveled to Washington, DC, to speak at the United Chinese Americans convention, where she represented Nanchang Project on a panel discussion regarding birth parent searching.

Then, Nanchang Project’s help extended to all of Jiangxi province and later to the rest of China.

2019

Nanchang Project traveled back to Jiangxi in March, this time with two adoptees. They filmed a two part documentary of the trip, the film can be viewed in the Media section below.

2020, 2021, 2022 — adapting to Covid-19 pandemic challenges.

2020 — For much of the year, China remained in lockdown. Our team’s planned in-person trip to China was canceled and our Chinese volunteers were limited in their own ability to travel or search.

2021 — Certain regions in China loosened their restrictions, allowing some searches to take place. Nanchang Project sponsored the DNA tests of any birth families who came forward as a result of large-scale group search efforts in Jiangxi province and Guangxi autonomous region. Combined, over 40 new families were registered and at least one participant from each group found and reconnected with their first families.

2022 — We experimented behind-the-scenes and successfully confirmed the reliability of matches made in GEDmatch between adoptees who DNA tested with 23andMe/Ancestry and birth relatives tested through Chinese 23mofang. We announced our findings to the community and began offering autosomal tests via 23mofang to birth families early in the year.

Our DNA matching partner MyTaproot announced the closure of their database in May. We retrieved the birth parent data stored in their system for transfer to another database (Help For Family Reunion, HFFR) and began the tedious process of offering every family to be retested through 23mofang for upload to GEDmatch.

We were honored to present workshops on birth family searching at Chinese Heritage Camp in Colorado. You can view or download our slideshow here.

In autumn, we welcomed Cassidy, our first adoptee in a leadership role, as Co-Director—a move to support our longterm vision to someday be an organization fully led by adoptees.

2023 and onward — a new era of searching.

2023 — In January, we rung in Lunar New Year with our first DNA match of 2023.

In March, China announced the country has reopened to foreign tourists.

We launched new programs to make services more accessible for searching adoptees: Origins Searches and Toutiao Article Program (TAP). We also began a TikTok account and are working on an online campaign to reach more Chinese adoptees and reconnect our registered birth families with their lost children.

We significantly expanded our team of volunteers this summer with passionate and skilled individuals.

2024 — We will visited Hunan province this spring on behalf of 250 Hunan adoptees as part of our ongoing efforts to reach new (to us!) areas. Our team dispersed 3000 group search flyers in person and across Chinese social media. We visited 5 cities in Hunan, tested over 25 families found as a result of this trip, located foster family and finders for two participants, interviewed with 4 media companies, and made 3 surprise matches between adoptees and birth families so far. ALL community members are welcome to join our private Facebook group Nanchang Project Goes to China for updates we shared throughout our search trip!

We are currently accepting submissions from Chinese adoptees to participate in our upcoming book on origins search and reunion, as told by Chinese adoptees and birth families. This is an idea Nanchang Project has been working on since 2022, and we are excited for this book to bridge gaps and strengthen emotional connections between adoptees and first families. Proceeds raised will fund DNA tests for birth relatives in China. Learn more and submit your work here!

As of this fall, we have switched to using a Western DNA testing company popular among Chinese adoptees to test our birth families.

For the most recent updates about our work, please follow our public Facebook page, Instagram page, and TikTok account.

Media