Lyu Xiaoxun, a Chinese journalist and also a member of Communist Party of China (CPC), signed up to go to Luanping county in the Hebei Province city of Chengde, North China, in 2018 and became the first Party secretary of Yuying village in Pingfang Man township to help the villagers there get rid of poverty.
Lyu's father is a common Chinese villager, and Lyu spent most of time in the countryside in his childhood, that became an important reason why he participated in poverty alleviation efforts for rural areas.
When Lyu first arrived in Yuying village, which is less than 200 kilometers from the capital city Beijing, he didn't expect this tiny mountain village to be the way it was that garbage and sewage could be seen everywhere. Villagers had complained that half the people in charge of the village had not lived there for a long time.
Although Lyu had never worked in the countryside before, he soon tidied his mood and put acquainting with the villagers as his priority. Lyu spent more than two months visiting more than 130 households in the village and hand-drew two maps of Yuying, which records the detailed information of all households, to have a better grasp on the actual livelihoods of the villagers.
Sun Guozhong, who lost one leg in a traffic accident, and his wife, hearing impaired, used to live a hard life in a shabby house. After Lyu came to the village, he helped Sun obtain government aid to renovate his house. With subsistence allowances, the income of taking care of a nursery garden in cooperation with a real estate group, the dividends from photovoltaic projects on the hills around the village and several other subsidies, the Suns have no worries for food and clothes and their housing, education, medical care are guaranteed.
“Targeted poverty alleviation” was proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013. One of the principles of targeted poverty alleviation is the accurate identification of impoverished people, Lyu acquired a more thorough comprehension during his work in Yuying. Lyu said identifying the impoverished people is a hard task that it needs to look into not only their average annual incomes, but also their properties like whether they have other houses, cars or businesses. After that, the information will go through rigorous reviews to genuinely achieve accurate identification of the poor.
Yuying was listed as an impoverished village in 2014 and poverty incidence exceeded 30 percent. Yuying was not the poorest, but faced similar problems that occurred in other impoverished areas in China, like how to develop industry and how to increase people's income. Lyu described the poverty alleviation work in Yuying as the epitome of China's efforts throughout the country to help people lead wealthier and happier lives.
Despite a villager saying no many times, Lyu managed to persuade him to grow okra on the field of 8,667 square meters because it is highly nutritious and could be harvested within a year. The bumper harvest of okra brought an average income of 7,000 yuan per mu (66.7 square meters) that the planting of okra allowed many people to see the real benefits.
Based on the experience on poverty alleviation, he believes that the challenge of hollow villages and an aging population can be mitigated. With environment in all aspects, for instance the infrastructure and the industry-based development, becoming better, young people will be attracted to return and entrepreneurs will return to their home villages to invest and start businesses, which forms a positive circle.
Kang Xuepeng returned to Yuying village from Beijing and developed his own farm after he saw the development of the village. His farm also hires local residents to take care of the vegetables and fruit trees, providing extra income for the villagers. Lyu promised Kang to settle the distribution channels for him, to promote the local grown agricultural products and encouraged Kang to start picking and sightseeing tourism.
Under China's governance system, similar talent exchange programs bring practical help to impoverished areas in China to obtain professional resources, vision and development opportunities they need and contribute to the extraordinary accomplishments of China's eradication of extreme poverty.
During the past eight years, over 98 million Chinese people have shaken off extreme poverty, which is exemplary not only in China, but also in the world.
