Women Shine in Liangshan's Poverty Alleviation Campaign

CHINA is concerned with helping ensure that all of its citizens have sufficient food and clothing, safe housing, and access to compulsory education and basic healthcare services as part of its poverty alleviation campaign. It is crucial that impoverished people are motivated and actively engaged in the undertaking.

- ZHANG WEILAN

On a recent seven-day trip to Zhaojue County, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, I discovered that women of impoverished households are holding up half the sky for their families. The following are some highlights of their journeys out of poverty.

Embroidery Empowering Women

Thirty-one-year-old Ahai Mebaowei never thought she would move into a 100-square meter home with bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, and a living room in the central part of Liangshan. When she was still a teenager, the Guozu village native had to leave her impoverished parents behind in the desolate mountainous area that they were from in order to go work as a migrant laborer. She only had two outfits of clothes to take with her and a pair of gloves that her mother gave her.

“I worked at a factory in Guangdong, and my days there were difficult,” Ahai recalled. “I was an outsider and a nobody in the province’s bustling cities. I never forgot who I was or where I came from though.” She also mentioned that her dream was to live a decent life like some of the locals that she met while she was in Guangdong and that her dream finally comes true.

Ahai eventually returned to Liangshan after her stint in Guangdong, got married, and had children. Her husband had been working as a migrant laborer as well and continued to do so, but it was difficult for the family of six to live on the RMB 3,000 income that they brought in each month. The Thais resided in a simple adobe home at the time and were eventually identified as impoverished.

Local authorities in Liangshan began helping people who lived in dilapidated residences in rural parts of the prefecture renovate their homes and those who had been living in inhospitable areas relocate to resettlement sites at the end of July in order to help them get out of poverty.