A grand gathering to mark the nation’s poverty-alleviation accomplishments was held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 25 February.
President Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee, and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attended the gathering, distributed awards to China’s poverty-alleviation role models, and delivered an important speech.
Zeng Daoqun, an Autumn 2019 student in the Community Governance for Rural Revitalisation degree-enhancement programme for local grassroots cadres, provided by the OUC’s Zigong RTVU in Sichuan Province, was one of those receiving an award.
Zeng Daoqun is secretary and director of the CPC branch of Gaotan Village, Lianluo Township, Yantan District, Zigong City. She believes strongly in learning, and enrolled in the programme in order to ensure that her ability to fight poverty would remain sharp.
Over her two years of study at Zigong RTVU, Zeng obtained an effective education at both the theoretical and practical levels, and her constant efforts led to her being selected deputy to the 13th National People’s Congress of Sichuan Province, deputy to the 17th National People’s Congress of Zigong City, and 12th Party representative of Yantan District, while also being honoured as a role model in the economic and social development of Yantan District, a “talented village governor” of Zigong City, and a “female pace-setter” in the struggle against Covid-19 there.
In recent years, Zeng has led village management in raising over 30 million RMB in funding to establish OEM cooperatives for grain and oil, laying hens, and footwear, offering employment to 91.6% of the village’s poor, and helping them realise a three-fold increase in annual income. Gaotan Village has undergone huge transformations: the village now gains 100,000 yuan annually in tax income, where in the past it gained nothing; 67% of low-income residents have moved to new houses; 95% of households have gained tap water; and cement roads have been paved. The village can no longer be referred to as poor.
By Sichuan Branch