The road leading to Va Chu Rua's family in Nam Can village, Nam Can commune, passes through many fields. This season, people are harvesting cassava and galangal. Cheerful voices and laughter signal a bumper crop.
Looking at the low-lying fields with streams flowing through them, suitable for rice cultivation and fruit trees, Lieutenant Colonel Xong Ba Mua, Deputy Political Officer of Nam Can Border Post, said that these fields used to be abandoned or poorly cultivated, resulting in hunger and poverty.
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Nam Can Border Post holds a Tet-celebrating program with the participation of local people. |
In 2019, the Chain-of-Command of the border post worked with local Party committee and authorities to select Va Chu Rua’s family to conduct a farming model as an example for locals to follow.
Va Chu Rua recalled that the post’s officers visited his family to encourage them to change their ways of thinking and developing economy right on their fields to escape hunger and poverty. Having eye-witnessed the unit’s effective farming models, he was determined to follow.
With funds raised among its personnel and from farming revenue, the post bought fish and chicken fry, fruit trees, fertilizers and contributed working days to Rua’s family’s cultivation, pond digging to raise grass carp and common carp, improvement of water sources, and expansion of rice field.
Now, the life of Va Chua Rua’s family has changed. “I am no longer afraid of hunger or poverty. If the weather is favorable and I am healthy, my family will soon be well-off,” Rua said excitedly.
Apart from the family of Va Chu Rua, Nam Can Border Post has also given financial support to two other families in Lien Son village, Nam Can commune to grow fruit trees, wet rice, do afforestation and raise livestock. So far, these models have shown their effectiveness, benefiting and helping families stabilize their life and escape poverty, especially becoming bright examples for other local households to learn and follow.
Colonel Luong Trong Thuy, Commanding Officer of Nam Can Border Post, said that the post is tasked with managing over 23 kilometers of the border and two land markers. It is also assigned to watching Nam Can commune with six villages and more than 2,600 people, mostly H’mong ethnic people. Local poor households make up 38.74 per cent while near-poor households account for 49.26%. Local people have different literacy level, live in hard economic conditions, and rely mainly on farming and small-scale husbandry. In addition, young people of working age mainly work as laborers in Southern provinces and the Central Highlands.
Aware of these difficulties, the post has mobilized all resources to launch programs to help develop local socio-economy and build new-style rural areas.
Twenty one Party members of the post are now responsible for 85 impoverished families. The post has coordinated with organizations and benefactors to build “Border medicine cabinets,” provide health check-ups and medicines to locals, install solar power light poles along the commune’s roads, helping facilitate local people’s travel and bring new appearance to the villages. It has also opened charity houses where locals could get food, clothes and other necessities for free.
Officers and soldiers of the post have also upgraded inter-village roads, lent locals a hand to repair and build houses.
Practical models and structures implemented by Nam Can Border Post have contributed to tightening the troops-people bonds, inspiring locals to escape poverty and actively engage in protecting the nation’s territorial sovereignty and border security, said Lau Ba Xenh, Secretary of the Party Committee of Nam Can commune.
Translated by Mai Huong