Common prosperity is poverty alleviation in real sense.
“I sold four calves in 2020, netting more than RMB40,000, and my rice wine sells very well, bringing RMB40,000-50,000 a year.” The villager Zhang Liao was calculating how much money he made last year when the reporters visited him.
Two years ago, Zhang Liao was registered as an impoverished household with a lot of debts. Many poor villagers in Huangjia Geta were of an old age and lacked in technology and working ability, which meant it was tough for them to move from poverty to prosperity on their own.
With the assistance of the Air Force poverty alleviation working team, the impoverished households in the village formed cooperatives. The Air Force headquarters built a cattle breeding base with 26 breeding cattles and 5 cattle sheds for the cooperatives. The impoverished households could rent breeding cattles and cattle sheds from the cooperative for free.
In 2019, Feng Zhi’an was granted a RMB20,000 interest-free loan from the village cooperatives and contracted two greenhouses to enlarge his chicken-raising business. With the help of the poverty alleviation working team, he sold his products on e-commerce platforms and made a net income of RMB110,000 that year.
With the assistance of the Air Force poverty alleviation working team, almost every household at Huangjia Geta has found a way out of poverty to prosperity by making the most of the cooperatives. In 2018, the whole village was lifted out of poverty. In 2019, its annual per capita income reached RMB12,000.
The villagers in the Huangjia Geta Village ever lived in such dilapidated adobe house in the past. (File photo)
The picture shows the brick house of villagers in the Huangjia Geta Village at present. (PLA Daily/Gu Shuai)
Enduring efforts are needed to consolidate the results of poverty eradication.
Education holds the key to century-long development. There is only one rural boarding school – the Yongping Town No.3 Elementary School near the Huangjia Geta village. The dormitories in the school was so poor and backward that there wasn’t hot water supply and more than ten kids had to cram in one dorm.
Since 2016, the Air Force headquarters has helped the school to improve the hardware facilities including building a new dormitory building and a hot water room, donating about 10,000 books to set up a reading room for the students. In addition, teachers were offered opportunities to study and train in areas of advanced education, students from poor families to watch the China Airshow in Zhuhai, join summer camps in Beijing, attend the Air Force’s Aviation Open Day in Changchun, and other activities to broaden their horizons.
Over the past four years, 95 students from poverty-stricken families have been sponsored to finish school. These students make the talent pool for the revitalization of Huangjia Geta Village and carry its hope for the future.
