Yang Yonglin: Getting Close to Grassroots to Fight Poverty

Yang Yonglin was sent to Juesa township, Butuo county in Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture, Southwest China's Sichuan province, in December 2017 by China Energy Investment Corporation (China Energy)'s subsidiary in Sichuan, to help eradicate poverty.

Figure out roots of poverty

Figuring out the reasons for poverty is a key to solving the problem. Therefore, Yang visited all 832 households in the township and went to the farmland, investigating and listening to local people's needs and difficulties.

Yang is a Tibetan. Just like the local people of Yi ethnic group, he is good at singing and dancing. He often sat together with them, establishing a friendly bridge by learning their languages and singing their songs.

Butuo is an extremely poverty-stricken county in China with negative natural conditions and weak infrastructure. Black cattle and black goat are the main livestock and many people grow potatoes, buckwheat and oats for a living.

To solve local education problems, Yang used China Energy's poverty relief funds to construct and renovate two kindergartens and two pre-school education institutes, improving the kindergarten enrollment rate to 100 percent.

In addition, focusing on helping local people live in better houses while improving their livelihoods and daily habits, Yang launched a happy and beautiful new village project in Bozuo village, which promoted formation of the new development pattern of urban-rural integration. Bozuo is now an icon of new village construction.

Traditional culture of the Yi ethnic group was also highly valued in the battle against poverty. Yang collected cultural objects and set up an exhibition gallery, displaying the group's culture and customs as well as recording poverty-alleviation progress.

Promote local industries

Yang found that weather and soil conditions in Juesa are similar to those in his own hometown of Sichuan, where plums have become popular in recent years.

Therefore, he invited some planting experts to the township to do surveys and collected local meteorological and hydrologic data to test whether the region is suitable for growing plums.

In the spring of 2017, Yang purchased 130 plum tree saplings with 18,000 yuan ($2,692.8) for pilot planting.

Plum tree saplings valued at 300,000 yuan were planted in 200 mu (13.33 hectares) of areas in Bozuo in March 2020, and their rate of survival was quite high.

It is predicted that each tree can produce 10 to 15 kilograms of plums, worth about 600,000 yuan annually.

Yang also helped development of scale breeding and family ranching. He encouraged some pioneers to start breeding of cattle, pigs, sheep, chicken and fish and negotiated with China Energy in Sichuan to help sell agricultural products.

Poverty alleviation amid COVID-19 epidemic

Facing the sudden outbreak of COVID-19, Yang rushed back to Juesa during the Spring Festival vacation to help local people build a strong firewall of prevention and control of the epidemic.

He participated in health investigation of immigrant workers returning to Juesa every morning and visited every household to conduct sterilization and disinfection and to give information about epidemic prevention.

Several projects on construction of clinics, schools, housing, drinking water facilities and power equipment were halted because of the epidemic.

To guarantee that poverty-alleviation was kept on schedule, Yang communicated with the construction teams and other related companies to resume construction as soon as possible.

Another problem brought by the epidemic was reduction of income in each family, for the migrant workers were forced to stay in the township, unable to go to cities to make a living.

Working in the city has been a main source of income for Juesa households.

To guarantee their income during the epidemic, Yang collected 300 workers' needs and contacted eight construction projects to arrange their employment in local engineering.

Thanks to the poverty-alleviation projects, 190 villages in Butuo were de-listed from poverty in 2019.

Yang visits local people and listens to their needs regarding fruit growing and livestock breeding. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

Yang encourages a poverty-stricken household to start livestock breeding. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

Yang spreads knowledge of epidemic prevention and control among villagers. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

(Executive editor: Wang Ruoting)