'You're not alone': Pals nominated for equality and diversity honour at Young Scot Awards
Friends Josephine Jay, Hannah Feben-Smith and Addie Barra were all born in China but adopted by families in the UK and US.United by their shared past, the trio - who met in Edinburgh in 2019 - have set up a multimedia project to support other Chinese adoptees struggling with their identities.Josephine, 25, Hannah, 21, and Addie, 26, are among more than 145,000 Chinese nationals who have been adopted abroad since 1992 as a result of China's one-child policy.And thanks to the trio's 'Whatever Next?' project, dozens of young women like them no longer feel isolated or alone.Their dedication to helping others has earned them a Sunday Mail Young Scot Award nomination in the Equality and Diversity category.Josephine, who was adopted at 18 months from Fuyang in north west China and now lives in Edinburgh, said: "I was three when I asked mum if I'd grown inside her tummy.
She said, 'No, you grew inside your first mummy in China.'"We are among tens of thousands of Chinese adoptees living in the West."In 1980, Deng Xiaoping instigated China's one-child policy to curb population growth.
As a result of the Confucian idea that boys are more valuable than girls, China's orphanages filled up with baby girls. "From 1992, China allowed foreigners to adopt those babies.
We were three of them."We all met in Edinburgh via a Chinese adoptee Facebook page after Addie posted that she had recently moved to Scotland and was looking for other adoptees also living in the city."After getting together, we realised the benefit of talking about our situation to others who have been through the same thing, so Whatever Next?
