Six female villagers in Yimeng, east China's Shandong province, have made outstanding achievements in helping locals shake off poverty by leading their peers to embark on the path to prosperity over the past few years. [Cnwomen.cn]

Six female villagers in Yimeng, east China's Shandong province, have made outstanding achievements in helping locals shake off poverty by leading their peers to embark on the path to prosperity over the past few years.

Niu Qinghua lives in Yedian Town in Mengyin County. Her husband became a migrant work, leaving her to run the household, look after the kids and take care of the elderly all by herself.

Besides, she also had to look after 1.3 hectares of orchards, over 100 pigs, 40 sheep, and more than 200 chickens. The arduous life and lack of sleep compelled Niu to change her situation.

At the end of 2015, the Party secretary of Beiyanzi Village invited an e-commerce instructor to lecture in the area. Niu signed up on a course and mastered the skill in 10 days.

She then opened an online store to sell apples at a price of over 11 yuan per kilogram, whilst her purchase price was less than five yuan per kilogram.

Surprisingly, nearly 5,000 kilograms of the pricey apples, which were much more expensive than those offered by local farmers, were sold out within a month.

Niu also sold peaches, peanuts and other local products online. The sales on her online stores have now exceeded over 6 million yuan.

The peak peach season saw the monthly sales exceed 100,000 million kilograms, with average daily sales volume of over 3,000 kilograms; and the monthly sales of apple reaching 60,000 kilograms; and, the monthly sales volume of peanuts being close to 25,000 kilograms.

Wang Yang is a college-graduate village official in Zhucun Village of Linshu County. Since she took office, she has conducted many household visits, especially among the 38 poverty-stricken families in the village.

Wang took the initiative to personally help 13 people in seven households.

Utilizing the traditional handicrafts of wickerwork and agricultural products, Wang created an agricultural products brand to participate in the first New Year Festival Purchase and Agricultural Products Fair in the city of Linyi, and promoted sales through online stores on Taobao, WeChat, and other channels.

Meanwhile, Wang developed her e-commerce business in the village based on the professional knowledge she had learned during her college years.

Through active coordination and cooperation with YTO Express, she jointly established a fully equipped e-commerce training classroom and a village service station for express delivery and e-commerce. The 38 impoverished households in the village have all achieved poverty alleviation.

Yu Xueyan of Mojialongtou Village in Junan County used to suffer from poverty. In 2003, a chance trip helped Yu discover prosperous business opportunities in weaving watermelon-holding mesh bags.

According to Yu, the production of watermelon mesh bags relies on labor. Despite its low profit, it is simple and easy to set up. Since there was plenty of redundant idle labor in the village, Yu and her husband decided to start their own business with the money they had saved over the years.

Yu also registered Fengle Plastic Products Co. on August 31, 2009, and developed it into a company integrating research and development, production and sales of watermelon mesh bags.

They also give preference to people with disabilities and those who came from necessitous households in employment so as to help these difficult groups shake off poverty.

As of now, Yu's company has led over 600 people in 11 neighboring villages to get rid of poverty. More than 2,000 people from other towns and counties in east China's Jiangsu province and in the city of Rizhao in Shandong province were also involved in the processing of the project.

Liu Jiaqin of Wutai Village, in Pingyi County, has similar experience with Yu. Liu is a woman with third-grade disability, and was unable to walk. And yet, in order to repay debts owed in her medical treatment over the years, Liu decided to start a business.

In spite of all the physical difficulties, Liu did her upmost to learn relevant techniques, gathered five people in the village, and borrowed from a rural credit cooperative. With her great efforts, in 2016, a garment processing factory was thus established. As she attaches great importance to the quality of products, the factory has retained many regular customers, and gradually expanded its scale.

Liu has hired many employees with various physical disabilities. She also set up two charitable organizations to help over 30 physically-impaired people find jobs. In addition, she opened another branch in Pingyi County and set up four poverty alleviation workshops in the surrounding villages to settle work problems for over 80 people.

Liu plans to continue to expand the scale of the garment factory and recruit more people who are in need so that they can achieve common prosperity.

Cao Shuyun is the president of the Yishui Huiyang Garment Co. In November 2016, Cao responded to the call of the Party Central Committee for poverty alleviation and set up a poverty alleviation garment processing workshop by taking into consideration the characteristics of the company and collaborating with the village secretary.

Cao also dispatched technicians to provide technology guidance for over 50 villagers.

Cao has built two poverty alleviation workshops in Shuangshan Village of Xiawei Township and Dazhuge Village of Zhuge Township, and recruited 146 disadvantaged people so that they can work close to their homes.

Now, the average monthly income of workers exceeds 2,000 yuan, and all impoverished households in the workshop have successfully shaken off poverty.

Lin Xizhen, a young volunteer from Pingshang Township of Linyi City, has been passing on the local women's historical heroism through her own actions.

Lin, who succeeded in entrepreneurship, began to participate in volunteer service activities in 2014. Her focus is always on helping aspiring and disadvantaged students and particularly those from poverty-stricken families, as well as elderly people with no family.

Lin said, "Sudden misfortunes could bring about tremendous economic and emotional trauma to the family members, especially the kids. If someone shows concern for them, offers them some help, they would be able to feel love, hope and strength; and, so long as they have confidence, they would have the motivation to fight."

Inspired by Lin, not only her relatives and friends have become volunteers, many other people from society have also joined the volunteer service team. The team now has recruited over 70 youth volunteers.

(Source: Cnwomen.com.cn/ Translated and edited by Women of China)

http://www.womenofchina.cn/womenofchina/html1/people/others/1812/5556-1.htm