How anti-poverty relocation helps mountain villagers seek life improvements
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For residents living in the poor mountainous areas of Xiushui County, east China’s Jiangxi Province, the local anti-poverty resettlement campaign has proved to be a life-changer.
Hu Shanghai, who once lived in a mountain village in Shangfeng Township, is among the rural beneficiaries.
Before moving to a brand-new apartment in a resettlement community in 2017, Hu had to trek hours from his home to the nearest shop for daily necessities. His family had to rely on meagre farm harvests to support their living.
The relocation program carried out in Xiushui for poverty-relief purposes has given Hu and many other poor rural residents access to better housing, hospitals, schools, and job opportunities.
Top left: Vehicles carry Hu Shanghai and other villagers as they relocate to new homes in a poverty-relief resettlement community in November 2017.
Top right: The Hu family move out of their old home in a mountain village in Shangfeng Township in November 2017.
Bottom: A view of the poverty-relief community where the Hu family now lives.
As part of the program, Hu gets re-employed as a forest ranger. He also invests in organic rice and silkworm businesses, which helped lift his family out of poverty in 2018.
Hu Shanghai (1st R) and his wife spend time with their children at their new home.
Hu Shanghai and his wife prepare lunch at their new home.
During China's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) period, Xiushui County has built 141 similar resettlement communities for more than 10,000 impoverished rural residents, who used to struggle with life in the county's mountainous areas.
Leng Qingliu and his wife Hu Aihua used to live in a dilapidated adobe house in mountainous Yangfang Village, before relocating in 2017 to a brand-new concrete residence in a resettlement community. The old couple have increased their family income by planting mulberry trees and working for a silk collective farm.
Top left: Leng Qingliu and Hu Aihua move out of their old home in the mountains in November 2017.
Top right: The Leng family move into their new home in November 2017.
Bottom: A view of the poverty-relief community where the Leng family now lives.
Like Leng and Hu, many resettled residents are re-employed in new poverty-relief businesses set up by governments at township and village levels, which adopted anti-poverty measures suitable to local conditions.
Leng Qingliu and Hu Aihua drive a tricycle to a village collective for work.
Resettled villagers work in a chrysanthemum factory in Tangqiao Village.
College entrepreneur Li Ping (R) and a villager go to work in Li’s shrimp farm in Tangqiao Village.
Resettled villagers tend peach trees in an orchard in Tangqiao Village.
Lin Yinghua is among the 53 households in Tangqiao Village that have moved to a resettlement community. The village has provided villagers with jobs in agricultural collectives where chrysanthemums, tea leaves, aquatic products, herbs and fruits are cultivated. So far, the incidence of poverty in the village has dropped from 9% before the relocation program to the current level of 1.1%.
Lin Yinghua (R) and a neighbor air-dry golden-and-silver honeysuckle flowers for a village herb collective.
Across Xiushui County, all 121 such businesses, established with a poverty-relief fund worth 446 million yuan (about 63 million U.S. dollars), have helped 10,370 relocation community inhabitants shake off poverty.
A poverty-relief resettlement community in Tangqiao Village.
Resettled villager Leng Fenman (R) watches TV with his family in their new home in Huanglong Township.
Peng Zhaozhi
Born in Nanchang, Jiangxi in 1989, Peng Zhaozhi currently works as photojournalist at Xinhua News Agency Jiangxi Branch with a focus on poverty relief and rural issues.
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