Profile: Chen Wanghui, a student in the Xiaojin branch of Aba Open University, is secretary of the Party branch in Maoshui village, Dawei Town, Xiaojin County, Sichuan.
She has been named a "March 8th Red-banner Pace-setter" (outstanding female role model) and "Advanced Individual in National Poverty Alleviation". She is also a delegate to the 20th CPC National Congress.
Maoshui Village lies at the foot of Jiajin Mountain. It is famous for its cultivation of roses, for which village cadre Chen Wanghui, known as "Sister Rose", is mainly responsible.
She hails from Jiajin Mountain, which was crossed in winter by the Red Army during its Long March, but now features roses instead of snow.
Since childhood, Chen Wanghui has been immersed in stories of the Long March and the Red Army’s courage, and she says that, as secretary of the village Party branch, she and the villagers have launched their own Long March of poverty eradication by planting alpine roses, the scale of which has been growing in the area, bringing happiness there.
Back in 2011, before Chen Wanghui was elected director of the Maoshui Village Committee, the village had steep hills, wide gullies, barren land and low crop yields.
Like the Long March, the "rose road to wealth" was full of hardships. She visited Gansu, Shandong, Yunnan and Shanghai to study cultivation and obtain good varieties. She and the villagers gradually learned how to cultivate roses, and by 2016 the plantation had grown from one mu to hundreds, so that the fragrance of roses permeates the air where the Red Army crossed, and brings happiness to the villagers. They affectionately called her "Sister Rose", and she was elected secretary of the Maoshui Village Party Branch that year.
Today, 46 villages cultivate roses on a total of 15,000 mu. Her plan, however, is to expand the area to 20,000 mu, covering 16 townships, 50 villages, and more than 5,000 rose growers. At the same time, the Xiaojin Rose will be integrated into other industries to consolidate and expand by integrating production and planting into tourism, with every place at the foot of Jiajin Mountain sharing in the wealth.
In September 2019, she was given the National Poverty Alleviation Award, and in October 2020 named a "March 8th Red-banner Pace-setter". In February of 2021, she was named an "Advanced Individual in National Poverty Alleviation", and in June of that year a "National Excellent CPC Party Member". In 2022, she was elected as a delegate to the 20th CPC National Congress, and enrolled at Sichuan Open University to study Rural Administration and learn more about industrial management and rose cultivation and management.
By OUC News Network