Jia Rongshan, a 52-year-old with a spinal deformity, works as a broom maker for the cooperative. |
It was 5:30 am on a summer morning when Qian Zhengcang, 51, climbed a mountain slope to survey his 0.13 hectares of cornfields in Dongsi village, Yunxi county, Hubei province. His heart sank when he saw patches of dried corn straws and realized the summer drought had destroyed most of his crops.
Qian's parents, both in their mid-70s, have chronic illnesses, and he has lost some of his motor skills after a stroke so he can no longer undertake heavy farm work.
The biggest blow to the family came last year when Qian Dayan, 30, Qian Zhengcang's son and the family's sole provider, quit his job as a security guard in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region because of health issues. The family's status fell from "struggling" to "abject poverty" in a heartbeat.
"All is not well," said Qian Zhengcang, with a sigh. "There's little I can do."
Qian's story is just one among the 142,000 Yunxi residents classified as "impoverished", and who live below the province's poverty line of 4,100 yuan ($613) a year. Illness, lack of employment skills and low funding are the main causes of poverty in the county, according to a report published last year by Yunxi's poverty alleviation office.
The elimination of rural poverty is one of the top priorities in China's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), and at this year's Business 20 Summit in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, President Xi Jinping pledged to lift 57 million people out of poverty, as defined by current standards, by 2020.
For many rural poor, the solution in recent decades has been to become a migrant worker. However, millions of impoverished families similar to Qian's typically lack the energy, skills and education to find a job.
In response, a four-month pilot program - the Labor Assistance Cooperation Initiative - spearheaded by local governments and companies from Hunan, Hubei and Guangdong provinces, set out to target each family's situation and help them secure stable employment.
The other selected counties are Huayuan and Longshan, both in Hunan's Xiangxi Tujia-Miao autonomous prefecture, named for the region's two prominent ethnic groups.
The primary drivers are the Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security, the Administration of Employment Services and the Office of Poverty Alleviation.
The program started in April and ended in August. An Aug 15 assessment report said the lessons learned will help when the initiative is expanded nationwide.
