Faith and opportunity for the poor to emerge

To arouse the desire of poor households to escape poverty, Di An city has changed its mindset and methods, helping poor households escape multidimensional and sustainable poverty. Many poor households have built confidence in escaping poverty from good models and practices of the city.

Binh An ward provides basic necessities for women of poverty

The mindful elimination of poverty

Hoang Thi Ly in Di An ward was previously in a poor household. Due to her visual impairment, her life encountered tremendous difficulties. With the support of local departments and unions, Ly boldly borrowed preferential capital to do business and established a broom making cooperative group. Up to now, the Broom Making Cooperative Group owned by her has not only helped her family escape poverty but also nurtured the dream of a sustainable escape from poverty for many other blind women. Ly said: "The ward Women's Union and the city Bank for Social Policies Transaction Office lent my family VND 50 million to purchase accessories to make brooms for sales. Using work to make a profit, and with the guidance of the ward Women's Union, the family saved up to pay interest and principal and had enough money to save in the bank to stabilize their life." Ly's case is one of the households that have escaped poverty sustainably and multi-dimensionally in the city in the current stage.

Talking to us, Tran Van Hop, Head of the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs of Di An city, said: "The difficulty in poverty reduction in the area is how to help the poor escape poverty sustainably, not to be poor again. Accordingly, the city aims to innovate thinking about poverty reduction, increase preferential loans, and minimize support policies that give rise to the idea of dependence and expectation on each household's policies. The locality only provides support in terms of mechanisms, policies, resources and dedicated guidance, while the poor and poor households themselves must try to do business to gradually escape poverty."

As noted by us, poverty reduction work in Di An city is implemented in a very new and methodical way. After reviewing poor households using a multi-dimensional method, the local Poverty Reduction Steering Committee went deeper into classifying the main causes leading to poverty of each household and group of households with criteria such as lack of work experience, lack of food, lack of labor, many dependents, lack of capital, lack of land and means of production, laziness of labor, accidents and risks, sick and disabled people and lack of jobs. Based on the survey of poor households' needs and shortage criteria, wards make a list in order of priority for units and localities to support. Before receiving support, the units go on field trips to find out the needs and abilities of each household to provide appropriate help such as loan support, home repair, vocational training, job application etc.

Change of conduct

The highlight of Di An city's poverty reduction in recent times is supporting vocational training and introducing jobs for poor workers and ethnic minorities. From 2021 up to now, Di An city Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs has coordinated to open 7 elementary vocational classes such as bar-tending, flower arrangement, and makeup. In particular, the department coordinated with the city's Vietnamese Fatherland Front Committee to award 9 great solidarity houses to poor, nearly-poor, and housing-poor households with a total cost of VND 913 million.

Pham Nguyen Truong Loc, Vice Chairman of Di An ward People's Committee, said that on the basis of completing the investigation and review of poor and nearly-poor households according to multidimensional poverty reduction criteria, ward officials analyze the causes to classify subjects and have appropriate support directions in order of priority. For households that do not have the ability to work (being old, weak, often sick, suffering from serious diseases), the ward implements a direct support mechanism that does not include them in implementing poverty reduction goals but moves them to the target group of social protection. For groups that are not poor in basic social services but poor in income, the policies will focus on creating livelihoods and preferential support for business capital. For groups who are poor in basic social services but not poor in income, there will be policies to support accessibility.

To effectively implement poverty reduction, in addition to implementing many programs and policies to support people, Di An city has actively propagated and raised awareness so that people can promote the spirit of self-reliance. Pham Van Bay, Vice Chairman of Di An city People's Committee, said that when Decision No. 59/2015/QD-TTg of the Prime Minister takes effect, Di An city as well as other districts, towns and cities in the province has begun to approach and implement multi-dimensional poverty reduction. In addition to income criteria, poor households are also measured by the level of deficiency in 5 basic social services including health, education, housing, living conditions and access to information.

“Clearly identifying one of the most important things in poverty reduction is to change thinking, eliminate poverty from within, so that people can self-reliantly rise out of poverty, so the work of improving propaganda capacity and disseminating legal policies on poverty reduction are always implemented by Party Committees, authorities, Fatherland Front and mass organizations at all levels," Pham Van Bay said.

Reported by Kim Ha - Translated by Vi Bao