Efforts to escape from poverty of ethnic minority women

(VBSP News) “In poverty, poverty of knowledge is the most feared! In the lost, the most frightening is the loss of faith!” these are the lessons learned in the fight against poverty of ethnic minority women.

Mrs. Ho Thi Thanh (on the right side) is sharing her experiences of escaping from poverty with other women

Who says ethnic women are hard to get rich?

H'Lan is not only known by people in village 9, Quang Khe commune, Dak G'long district (Dak Nong) because of her hardworking, creativity in caring for coffee, raising pigs and chickens, but also admired with the saying: "I am afraid of knowledge poverty" at the conference "Praising the districts, communes and households escaping from poverty in the 2016-2020 period" at the end of 2018 in Hanoi.

For this ethnic woman, she went through a lot of challenges to become successful as today. H'Lan said that in the past, her family only concentrated on farming. Thanks to the support of commune Women's Union, Dak G'long VBSP lent her VND 35 million from the Poor Households Lending Program, giving her a big turning point in terms of awareness and methods to escape from poverty: "We were provided with capital by VBSP and given advices, techniques of planting and caring to bring high productivity etc. Looking back, every step of my way has VBSP and Women's Union companionship. They give me the motivation to succeed” Ms. H’Lan said.

We met Mrs. H’Lan when she and her family have completely escaped from poverty for nearly two years. Currently, her family's income reaches from VND 180 million - VND 200 million per year but the nearly 40-year-old woman still insists that she has to try harder to develop a stable economy, not falling in poverty again. She often shared with the women in the village that women can also get rich by themselves. Participating in economic development classes helped her understand many things. The most frightening thing is not material poverty but the knowledge one. Women will not know what to plant, what to raise and how to cultivate properly if their knowledge is poor. When the plants, chickens, and pigs have diseases, they are also not aware of what to spray and cure. "Therefore, women should work hard and learn more experiences and knowledge to help their families and themselves escape from poverty" H’Lan said.

Another typical example is Mrs. Ho Thi Thanh in Hung village, Trong Hoa commune, Minh Hoa district (Quang Binh). Mrs. Thanh also became a better-off household thanks to the preferential capital of VBSP in Minh Hoa district. Looking back at the difficult past, Mrs. Thanh said that among the lost, the most frightening is the loss of faith. She and many people here are used to damages caused by storms and floods every year. However, Mrs. Thanh thinks property loss can be taken back if there is determination, knowledge and belief, because they always have support of the government, relatives and policy credit officers. “As my family’s experience, when the typhoon number 10 hit a few years ago, my family lost 90% of our crops so we were in danger of falling back into poverty. However, VBSP extended the debt promptly and we overcame difficulties” Mrs. Thanh said.

Mass organizations - "extended arm" policy

The Women's Union plays an important role in the success of Mrs. Thanh and H'Lan, which is considered as an "extended arm" of VBSP in timely conveying the preferential capital of the State to poor women across the country, including Mrs. Thanh and H’Lan. Thanks to  Women’s Union, both of them who were shy, self-deprecating became strong, confident, ambitious for enriching themselves and inspiring for the others.

Regarding the role of Women's Union, Tran Lan Phuong - Deputy General Director of VBSP said that as one of the mass organizations assigned by the Government to work closely with VBSP, in the past years, Women's Unions always strive and be creative, contribute to promoting effective channel of policy capital to poor households and other policy beneficiaries. Women's Unions always show their role as participants in implementing and organizing social credit programs and being beneficiaries of preferential credit policies.

VBSP has collaborated with the Women's Union to implement well the lending activities for poor households and other policy beneficiaries to ensure the quality of outstanding loans, preserve credit policy capital, announce and popularize preferential credit policies of the Government to beneficiaries; guide of forming and supervising activities of Savings and Credit groups;accompany with the Groups’ Management Board to guide and inspect the use of loans, urge borrowers to pay debts, pay interest on time and deposit savings according to the group's operation regulations; coordinate with VBSP and local authorities to confirm and propose solutions to deal with debts and interests at risk due to objective reasons and handle cases of overdue debts under the guidance of VBSP;

The inspection and supervision and propagation are always paid attention and directed by the Women's Union and VBSP to explain and convey credit policies of the Government to members and communities, at the same time, check out the shortcomings to promptly overcome. Every year, VBSP and Women's Union coordinate to organize training courses for officials and associations at all levels, officers of Savings and Credit groups, and coordinate with functional agencies in training on agriculture, forestry, fishery etc to help borrowers develop production and business projects and know how to use loans effectively.

Up to now, the total amount of entrusted loans of VBSP via Women's Union reached nearly 73 trillion VND with 2.5 million active borrowing members.

danviet.com.vn