li xinghong, 47, was a poverty alleviation official selected by chemchina in november 2018 to serve as the first party secretary of ganenxin village in xijing town, gulang county. he was also the head of the task force in the village to help 3,771 people from 803 registered poor households shake off poverty and get rich. since he took root in the village, mr. li has devoted himself to the frontline of poverty alleviation, practicing his vow of “never leaving a single household or any individual behind in poverty alleviation.” this has demonstrated his simple feelings as a contemporary chemchina person who has resolved to win the fight against poverty and the loyalty and love of a grassroots official to the party and the people.
located at the southern edge of the tengger desert, gulang is one of the 58 poor counties in gansu province and one of the 23 deeply impoverished counties in the province, with a population of about 400,000. starting from july 2004, bluestar provided paired-up assistance for gulang county. according to the requirements of the national three-year plan for poverty eradication, chemchina has been paired with gulang county since 2018, helping it shake off poverty. since then, gulang has become a common concern of chemchina and bluestar.
li xinghong, the former principal staff member of lanzhou bluestar cleaning’s planning office, has been engaged in project planning. with rich working experiences, li has devoted himself into his duty. thanks to his skill at communication and understanding of rural conditions, he became the best candidate as a poverty alleviation official.
targeted measures facilitate the fight against poverty
at the beginning of his post, mr. li xinghong, facing the difficult natural and working environment, strengthened his resolve to complete the task of poverty alleviation assigned by the party organization and lead the villagers to get a better-off living, no matter how hard it would be. as a representative in the village, he has been well aware the significance of the burden on his shoulders. living and eating in the village, li often conducted visits to and surveys for poor households, school, kindergartens, breeding plots and fields and closely communicated with paired-up objects. in implementing anti-poverty measures, he repeatedly disseminated to the villagers the party’s policy of benefiting the agricultural sector and enriching the people, helping villagers to change backward development concepts.
in the summer of 2019, li’s son would sit for the national college entrance exam. it was a critical point in a man’s life, and mr. li also wanted to accompany his son through this important step. however, all the work in the village was also in full swing without delay. the breeding industry had just started, which could not be separated from him. the intense flood control and drainage were guarded by him around the clock, and the elderly living alone was taken care of by him. how many days, he came and went in wind and rain; how many nights, he rushed to the site as long as a phone call. in this way, he did not appear in front of his son until his child finishing the college entrance examination was enrolled in a university. whenever it was mentioned, he could not help but shake his head and sigh. but he said, “for the happiness of villagers, i have no regrets.”
“on the journey towards poverty eradication, anti-poverty officials and villagers have developed strong feelings, with the former shouldering great responsibilities for lifting the latter out of poverty.” since he was stationed in the village, li xinghong has visited over 420 poor households and helped villagers solve 100-plus urgent incidents. having understood multifaceted situation and problems of the village, he reported to xijing town, industry departments and his unit in a timely manner, and did his best to promote the progress of relevant work to ensure that the poverty alleviation in ganenxin village was carried out smoothly. in 2019, through the joint efforts of the paired-up unit and the local government, the village pulled 575 people in 132 households out of poverty, with 26 people from 4 households remaining in poverty. the poverty incidence rate dropped to 0.56% from 86.41% in 2014. all poor households were expected to be out of poverty by the end of 2020.
by the end of 2019, bluestar had invested 3 million yuan in building a breeding base for 10,000 ewes in gulang county, provided 1.65 million yuan and technical support to build a demonstration park of chinese wolfberry industry in the migrant area for poverty alleviation, and donated 2.1 million yuan to name “bluestar high school self-improvement class” and set up scholarships in gulang high school. it had also invested 1 million yuan to help build 2 primary school buildings and donated 1 million yuan to develop a water quality monitoring center in gulang county. also, chemchina responded to the requirements of targeted poverty alleviation, established a two-way exchange mechanism for poverty alleviation officials, and selected two officials from bluestar as the deputy governor of gulang county and the first party secretary in the village, respectively. the two gave full play to their own advantages and implemented poverty alleviation projects. behind these figures, it is inseparable from the selfless hard efforts of countless poverty alleviation officials like li xinghong, who were rooted in rural areas.
finding the right path to develop characteristic industries
how shall i make good use of the poverty alleviation funds from various parties to maximize the warmth and care of chemchina for gulang county? this was something that li xinghong thought about a lot. through repeated discussions, he and village cadres decided: to shake off poverty, we must develop the collective economy of the village.
in 2019, li led party members and cadres to leverage local conditions to guide some farmers to break away from a single traditional farming industry and develop livestock breeding, diversifying the village’s production structure and income channels. he made full use of project funds and spent 4.9 million yuan of funds from paired-up units for the development of the village-based collective economy. he secured a capital injection of 6 million yuan from chemchina into gulang xingsheng sheep breeding co., ltd. to help lift 227 poor households out of poverty. he solved difficulties for the needy people and helped the village sell more than 20,000 jin of various vegetables, 8,000 jin of mutton, 4,800 jin of fine dried noodles and other agricultural products through the purchases of subsidiaries under chemchina on the chinese new year, dragon boat festival and mid-autumn festival. since 2019, a total of 8.4 million yuan of agricultural products have been sold, which has solved dull sales of poor households and continuously improved the long-term mechanism of poverty alleviation for sustaining the growth of the village collective.
speaking of developing the collective economy of the village, li xinghong also left a good story about “walking chicken” in the local area. in early 2019, through in-depth research and repeated discussions of the village collective, the village launched a chicken raising scheme, in which farmers joined in the form of share subscription. chicks were fed by the village, with the chicken farming cooperative born. li led village officials to encircle 40 mu of land at the edge of the village, allowing the chicks to walk freely in the desert. such chicks earned their name “walking chicken.” since they were free-range chickens, the walking chickens were of high quality in meat. li spent many sleepless nights and hard efforts in raising chickens and selling them. through one year of diligent cultivation, walking chickens have gone through the initial transformation from an agricultural product to commodity. according to the policy of “purchase in lieu of assistance,” chemchina’s subsidiaries have turned the chicken into a delicious meal on tables of employees during holidays.
doing tangible things for farmers with heart
nothing in the world is difficult for one who sets his mind to it. party member li xinghong always takes diligence as a magic weapon of eliminating poverty in the village.
currently, ganenxin village has received paired-up assistance from a 10-member team of seven units, including the leader chemchina, datang power fuel co., ltd., gansu military region, wuwei city military division, gulang county armed forces department, gulang county food and drug administration, and gulang county huanghuatan water administration. to do a good job of matching funds with projects, he often worked alone until late night. sometimes he was called to deal with relevant matters immediately when he started eating. long-term irregular diet made his stomach disease worse, but he never stopped his anti-poverty efforts and did substantive work to bring tangible benefits to villagers. on the eve of spring festival, it is the busiest time for li xinghong. to help the village obtain purchase orders for agricultural products, he always traveled back and forth between gulang county and relevant units. on the 29th day of the lunar month, 2019, he was still on the train to purchasing units when everyone else was joyfully preparing for the new year.
li xinghong has always kept the well-being of villagers in mind. for anyone in the village whose mother-in-law and daughter-in-law quarreled or whose livestock were sick, he would mediate between them or solve the problem. whenever something happened in the village, no matter how big or small, he would do his best to deal with it. once, in a household survey of visiting the needy, he learned that yu rongsan’s son was facing dropping out of school because he could not pay tuition fees. he did not hesitate to take out 1,000 yuan to help him complete his studies and offer his love for poverty alleviation through education. “it's a big deal for kids to go to school, we must give a helping hand.”
after the covid-19 outbreak in the spring festival of 2020, li hurriedly said goodbye to his family and rushed to the frontline of epidemic prevention and control, immediately organizing villagers to conduct relevant measures. he worked hard on the anti-epidemic frontline for 20-odd consecutive days. to raise epidemic prevention materials for the local community, he hurried back to lanzhou three times to pick up disinfectant and donated 1,214 kg of disinfectant, on behalf of lanzhou bluestar cleaning, to the red cross society of gulang county, the local center for disease control, the education bureau and the people’s government of xijing town. he served as the strongest fighter against the epidemic in the locality.
looking back on his poverty alleviation experience in the past two years, li felt that it was worthwhile to work hard, through which he grew up. tough efforts lifted the whole village out of poverty and made all villagers happy. it is his personal honor to engage in the great battle of a generation against poverty eradication.
he devoted himself to poverty alleviation by providing assistance to farmers and relieving the worries of the government and people. let the party, paired-up units and the people rest assured, this was the ordinary and simple goal of party member li xinghong in the past two years. with a high sense of responsibility and dedication as a party member, he always embodies the advanced nature and true nature of a communist party member in helping the people shake off poverty and live a well-off life.