What to do to "keep the fire burning" of population collaborators' activities?

Currently, Ha Tinh has 1,864 population collaborators. Together with the specialized team, this force has made an important contribution to the success of family planning communication work at the grassroots level. Their presence in villages and residential groups helps authorities at all levels promptly grasp population data, while providing good support for reproductive health care (RH) and improving population quality.

The population collaborators have made an important contribution to improving population quality and ensuring social security in the locality.

Not only that, in the population communication and reproductive health care - family planning campaigns, the population collaborators have clearly demonstrated their key role. They "go to every alley, knock on every door" to inform and encourage people to access health services. This dedication has created changes in people's awareness and behavior. Thereby, contributing significantly to improving population quality and ensuring social security in the locality.

The dedication and significant contributions of the population collaborators in Ha Tinh are undeniable. However, the reality is that the allowances for them are still modest.

Although she wanted to stop working many times due to the low allowance while her family's circumstances were still difficult, thanks to the encouragement from the village leaders and the commune health station, Ms. Le Thi Yen (born in 1970) - Trung Bang village population collaborator (Son Bang commune, Huong Son) continued to stick with the job.

Ms. Yen confided: “Honestly, there are times when I feel tired because this job requires a lot of traveling and contact with many people, while the allowance is only 720 thousand VND/month (including performing the tasks of population collaborator, village health worker and some other jobs). However, thinking that my knowledge and advice can help the villagers, I try to stick with the job.”

Having worked in population work for more than 40 years, the allowance that Ms. Tran Thuy Hung receives is still not commensurate.

Starting to work as a population collaborator since 1982, Ms. Tran Thuy Hung (born in 1960, in residential group 4, Dai Nai ward, Ha Tinh city) is still working hard. Every day and every month, Ms. Hung has to compile statistics on population changes (people coming and going), birth rates, death rates, sex ratio at birth, marriage status, and propagate and mobilize people to apply contraceptive measures... Due to the large population (nearly 500 permanent residents) and many people from other localities coming to live and rent shops, updating data requires Ms. Hung to spend a lot of time.

However, when mentioning the current allowance regime, Ms. Hung could not hide her concern: “After more than 40 years of working in population work, I have always tried my best to fulfill the assigned tasks. But with the current support level of 150,000 VND, I cannot help but worry about the future of those doing this work. The love for the job is great, but making a living is also a burden. We just hope that our efforts will be recognized more appropriately."

Currently, population collaborators are paid allowances according to Resolution 111/2023/NQHDND dated September 22, 2023 of the Provincial People's Council stipulating the titles, allowance levels and concurrent positions of non-professional workers at the commune, village and residential group levels; the fixed operating budget for socio-political organizations at the commune level; the monthly support level, the concurrent allowance level of people directly participating in activities in villages and residential groups and the allowance level for a number of other positions in Ha Tinh province.

Accordingly, in Section 6, Clause 1, Article 6 of Resolution 111/2023/NQHDND, population collaborators in wards/towns have an allowance of 120-360 thousand VND/month. In communes, according to Clause 2, Article 5 of Resolution 111/2023/NQHDND, population collaborators have an allowance of about 540-702 thousand VND/month (including village health tasks).

The population collaborators in Lam Hop commune (Ky Anh district) are concerned about the allowance for population work.

Difficulties in the allowance regime have partly led to frequent changes in the population collaborators, which more or less affects the quality of activities at the grassroots level. Currently, in Ha Tinh, there are 1,903 villages/residential groups but only 1,864 population collaborators can be arranged. This situation becomes even more worrying as the workload increases due to population fluctuations and increasingly high task requirements. As a result, many population collaborators have lost enthusiasm, worked half-heartedly, and even neglected their work, especially in the context of implementing the arrangement of administrative units as it is now, changing the management area will significantly increase the workload that each collaborator must undertake.

In order to maintain the effective operation of the population collaborators, in the long term, it is extremely necessary to improve the remuneration regime and have more practical policies. In the immediate future, we hope that the People's Committees at all levels will allocate sufficient operating funds for population work according to the provisions of Resolution 221/2020/NQ-HDND of the Provincial People's Council on population and development work in Ha Tinh for the period 2021-2030. The People's Committees at the commune level need to balance and arrange the budget to pay allowances in a timely and proper manner for the collaborators, direct and guide the selection and arrangement of population collaborators in villages and residential groups with long-term stability, ensuring the implementation of tasks according to regulations...

Mr. Phan Truong Sang - Head of Provincial Population Office

Source: https://baohatinh.vn/lam-gi-de-giu-lua-hoat-dong-cua-cac-cong-tac-vien-dan-so-post287394.html