20-year Long Fight Against Poverty

Zhan Jinying, a nearly 70-year-old unmarried woman, has devoted herself over the past 20 years to helping poor rural mothers, who follow Chinese family planning, rules shake off poverty. [GMW.cn/Zheng Zilin]

"Being single, I can lead a simple life and I will not be distracted by some household affairs when I am working. Although I have no family and children, I have deep feelings for the local underprivileged mothers and I am a good mother in their eyes," said Zhan Jinying, an unmarried woman who has devoted her life to helping poor rural women shake off poverty. 

Zhan was born in Putian, a city in southeast China's Fujian Province. She gave up the opportunity to land a job with a handsome salary on the southeast coast after she graduated from the Futian Normal University, instead, she chose to be a teacher in Taining, a poverty-stricken county in an old revolutionary base area in northwest China. Fifty years passed, and the young girl aged into an old woman of nearly 70 years old. 

Zhan has been helping disadvantaged local mothers to lead a prosperous life since she became the head of the Taining Family Planning Association 20 years ago. "I am glad to see many local mothers have shaken off poverty, and I can't bear to leave them," said Zhan, "I never feel lonely, despite  not getting married, because wherever I go, I will meet some people who treat me as their family."

Zhan delayed her retirement and is still working to help local women to alleviate poverty. In spite of the heavy workload, she feels relieved when she sees the outcomes of her hard work. When asked about the ways to reduce poverty, she can respond fluently. 

"Lifting local mothers out of poverty has always been the top concern in my mind," said Zhan, "We didn't have enough money before, so we could merely give several hundred yuan to them at the end of the year. They weren't getting rich until the Happiness Project (a charity project aiming at fighting poverty) was launched here in 2000."

Wen Yulian at first was a disadvantaged woman in Xiaqu, a town in Taining, who was overburdened with debt worth thousands of yuan . Wen tried her best to improve her livelihood in many ways, but all was in vain. When she was worried about how to raise money to rear pigs 8 years ago, which seemed to be an effective route out of poverty, Zhan and her colleagues offered a helping hand. 

Wen received 8,000 yuan (U.S. $1,283) from the Happiness Project as start-up capital after Zhan learned that Wen had no money to start her pig rearing program, during an investigation in Xiaqu. Zhan also helped Wen contact a professional pig breeder and recommended her and her husband to study pig raising techniques, which helped Wen solve the problems of money and pig-breeding technology. 

After one-year of hard work, Wen not only paid back all of her debts, but had managed to generate some savings. Given that she had accumulated lots of experience in keeping pigs, Wen intended to enlarge the scale of her operation. At this moment, Zhan helped Wen apply for a 10,000 yuan (U.S $1,600) loan from the Happiness Project and mortgaged her own property to borrow 30,000 yuan (U.S $4,800) from a local bank. 

Now, Wen and her husband have established a standardized pig farm with the average annual production of about 2,000 pigs and an annual income of over 400,000 yuan (U.S. $64,150). The family, from their humble beginnings, has now not only managed to renovate their house in their hometown, but also bought an apartment and a car in the county's main town. 

"Zhan is like my mother and all my success must be attributed to her," said Wen gratefully. Wen was deeply moved by Zhan's kindness and decided to pass on Zhan's spirit in that she led dozens of disadvantaged women from the surrounding villages to reduce poverty. 

The happiest thing for Zhan is to see lots of disadvantaged women lead a prosperous life and see the Happiness Project bring both economic and social benefits. 

According to Zhan, the Happiness Project has pulled a couple back from the brink of divorce. A large amount of money was squandered by the husband on gambling, leading to many conflicts between him and his wife. Later, the village cadres did some ideological work on the husband and officials from the local family planning department helped the couple apply for a 2,000 yuan (U.S. $320) loan from the project. The couple used the money to plant some tobacco and earned about 10,000 yuan  (U.S $1600). Now, the couple has set up a store in the eastern Chinese metropolis of Shanghai and their married life is very happy. 

Zhan said one of the family planning association's responsibilities is to care for villagers' lives, production and their fertility and to help them solve relevant problems. 

"The country has issued the second-child policy, and we must let villagers feel they are being cared for by the government and voluntarily follow Chinese family planning rules." 

The Happiness Project has allocated a total of over 9 million yuan (U.S $1.443 million) which has benefited approximately 1,000 disadvantaged families. The local family planning associations helped villagers gain over 20 million yuan (U.S $3.2 million) in loans through the small-loan program, benefiting more than 3,000 families and helping 95 percent of them shake off poverty. The loan recovery rate and the poverty relief rate are respectively 100 percent and 95 percent. 

Zhan found in her investigations that small loans ranging from 10,000 yuan (U.S $1,600) to 20,000yuan (U.S $3,200) could not meet some disadvantaged families' needs. She combined the recipients with manufacturing bases that suggested that the beneficiaries should invest their money in the bases, and that these bases would universally lead them to develop their production techniques and gave out bonuses to them, which not only ensures the recipients' economic benefits, but enhances the abilities of reducing poverty. Currently 10 bases have been set up and have benefited over 200 families. 

Over the past 20 years, Zhan called on more than 100 enterprises to donate money to fund her anti-poverty program and has tried hard to contact local government agencies, including the women's federations, and agricultural and civil affairs departments to help the disadvantaged families who follow Chinese family planning rules shake off poverty. Zhan has been dubbed by locals as "a good mother in the red soil". 

(Source: Guangming Daily/Translated by womenofchina.cn)