International Institute of Rural Reconstruction records, 1914-2018

The International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) was founded in 1960 to combat rural poverty worldwide. Its head and founder was Dr. Y.C. James Yen 晏陽初 (1980-1990). It deals with the problems of poverty, illiteracy, disease, and misgovernment in China, the Philippines, and other third world countries, and promotes American aid programs. Y.C. James Yen was born in 1893 in Sichuan Province, China. He graduated from Yale University in 1918, and later studied at Princeton University. During early experience as a Y.M.C.A. teacher in France among Chinese workers in 1919, Dr. Yen recognized the need for Chinese workers, traditionally a lower and undereducated class in their native country, to have basic reading and writing skills. He set about teaching them basic Chinese characters, enabling them to communicate with family members back home. Inspired by his success, he returned home to China. In 1923, he became the head of the Chinese National Association of the Mass Education Movement (later, the Chinese Mass Education Movement) and its fund raising arm, the American Cooperating Committee. Together these organizations supported the College of Rural Reconstruction in China. During World War II, Yen returned to the US and organized the American-Chinese Cooperating Committee (later the American-Chionese Committee of the Mass Education Movement) to secure American support and funding for his educational efforts in China. His committee was responsible for the China Aid Act of 1948 (otherwise known as the "Jimmy Yen Act") and the creation of the Chinese-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction.

After China turned to communism, Dr. Yen turned his attentions to the Philippines and other, smaller, nations in need. He formed the International Committee of the Mass Education Movement, later known as both the International Mass Education Movement (IMEM) and Jimmy Yen's Rural Reconstruction Movement (JYRRM). These organizations merged into the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction in 1960. The IIRR headquarters in the Philippines acted as the driving force behind a number of smaller movements in other countries. These movements included the Colombia Rural Reconstruction Movement (CRRM, MCRR), the Guatemala Rural Reconstruction Movement (GRRM, MGRR), the Ghana Rural Reconstruction Movement (GhRRM), the Indian Rural Reconstruction Movement (IRRM), the Korean Rural Reconstruction Movement (KRRM), and the Thailand Rural Reconstruction Movement (TRRM) to name a few. Dr. Y.C. James Yen died in 1990. He was survived by his movement, which still has regional centers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America as well as its headquarters in the Philippines.