Overcoming poverty and towards better future

Luu Ngoc Thanh, born in 1966, is living in Phu Thanh hamlet, Phu Thuan commune, Binh Dai district, Ben Tre province. Returning home after completing army duty, he became a disabled veteran. In 1986, he married and both of them came from very poor

A rice crop on the hired land only avoided hunger. The daily life is very hard while he has no assets, no fund and he is a disabled veteran with two little children. His family had to be hardworking and earn living by the job of hired work. Whoever hired him, he worked to earn enough money for his family.

He thought that the first thing is to stabilize house and cultivated land in order to have a stable life, he determined to overcome hardship and save money. Two years later, he bought 1,500m² (a part of hired land). The house was in a bad condition but his family felt stable and had land for production. He took advantage of each piece of land. He grew rice in the centre of field and grew bindweed and sweet potato for raising pigs around the field. The better life would have been come early to his family but unfortunately two times of raising pigs made him risky and lost money.

With the high spirit of overcoming poverty, despite weak health and without fund he had to ask for his friends’ support to sell lottery tickets. He went to many kilometers to sell lottery daily with VND 5000-7000 per one. His wife took after two small children to go to school, grew rice, raised duck for eggs as well as did any work that people hired to earn more money.

In 1999 his family was commented by the Board of poverty Reduction and ranked in the list of poor households type A. Thus, he was entitled to borrow VND1.2 million from the Bank for the Poor (now called VBSP) for cattle breeding. He thought raising cow is less risky and took use of available food (e.g grass and straw) for cow. Thus, he used  VBSP loans and savings to buy one seed cow at price of VND1.5 million in local area. The good luck came to his family when the cow price was increasingly growing. After 18 months, he sold one cow at price of  VND 03 million to repay loans for VBSP and his remainders are VND 1.8 million of interests and one mother cow.

In late 2002, with the support and guidance of relevant agencies at provincial and district level, the Board of Poverty Reduction at commune level formulated the project of raising cow Laisind for the poor. His family was encouraged to join the project for the reason that cow Laisind with high seed quality will bring about higher profit than local cows. After that, he bravely participated into the project and borrowed VND 07 million from VBSP. During the project implementation, the agricultural extension agency about organizing the technical training class of looking after and guidance helped him to choose and buy one cow Laisind suitable with his wish.

In 2004, with the proceeds from selling one cow at price of VND 14 million and from selling eggs and lottery etc., he put aside over VND 10 million, he rebuilt a house with cost of over VND 08 million, bought T.V and one pump for rice production and other furniture.  

To achieve the above results he said: “Thanks to the concern of the Party and the State and support of the poverty reduction program, especially preferential loan from VBSP plays such an important role. Thus, my family has overcome poverty. I think that despite without fund, it is important to be hardworking, economical and try to learn a lot. When the fund is supported, investment into production should be in accordance with the factual condition and family ability. There is need to choose investment into which suitable form of production that can take full use of available food and labour force. Moreover, we must try our best to support our children to get education in order for our future generation to have the same progress as others and  overcome poverty.”

What he said above is deserved to respect because it stems from the result of the family rising up from poverty and disability to step by step develop in a sustainable manner.

Van Hien - VBSP Ben Tre Branch