Improve living standards for the poor and disadvantaged

Help the poor settle down

Mrs. Bui Thi Bich in Doi Ngoc village, Thach Binh commune (Nho Quan) is nearly 70 years old. At that age, Mrs. Bich is enjoying the great joy of being about to live in a new house. Mrs. Bich said that she used to live with her parents in this small house. Her parents passed away, leaving Mrs. Bich alone. Her siblings have their own families but due to difficult circumstances, they are unable to help her. When she was still healthy, Mrs. Bich worked in the fields and worked as a maid to make ends meet.

In recent years, her arthritis has become worse, forcing Ms. Bich to stop farming, relying on a monthly allowance of more than 500,000 VND and the support of her brothers and neighbors. "I think I will stay in this dilapidated house until I return to my ancestors. Repairing or rebuilding are options I cannot implement because I do not have financial resources. However, thanks to the province's policy, I was supported with 100 million VND to rebuild a solid house. I try to complete the house within that support amount, if there is any additional cost, my brothers and relatives will support me more. This year's Tet is probably the warmest and happiest spring for me," Ms. Bich shared.

In Kim Son district, the implementation of support for poor households to build new and repair houses in accordance with Resolution No. 43-2023/NQ-HDND dated March 10, 2023 of the Provincial People's Council has been urgently implemented by localities.

Ms. Tran Thi Thu Hang, Head of the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs of Kim Son district, said: The housing support policy for poor households according to Resolution No. 43 of the Provincial People's Council has received the consensus, support and high appreciation of all classes of people. The policy has created conditions for poor households with housing difficulties to realize their aspiration of having a solid house. This is a motivation for the poor to work, produce, develop the economy and escape poverty, contributing to the successful implementation of the National Target Program on Sustainable Poverty Reduction and the National Target Program on New Rural Construction of the district.

Implementing Resolution No. 43, Kim Son district approved 106 households, of which 63 households were repaired and 43 households were supported to build new houses. Up to this point, the district has completed the support for building new houses and repairing houses for poor households. Poor households will celebrate the Lunar New Year in solid, warm and affectionate houses.

A prominent policy in supporting the poor in 2023 is that the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs has advised the issuance of Resolution No. 43/2023/NQ-HDND of the Provincial People's Council regulating policies to support the construction and repair of houses for poor households.

Immediately after Resolution No. 43 was issued, implementing the direction of the Provincial People's Committee and guidance of functional agencies, districts and cities in the province urgently established Steering Committees to support the construction and repair of houses for poor households.

Districts and cities direct communes and towns to hold meetings with representatives of poor households to collect opinions and make a list of poor households that are eligible and in need of support to build new or repair houses in 2023. Commune-level People's Committees conduct appraisals, publicly post, make lists, complete support request files, and summarize the results to report to the District People's Committee.

The implementation process of each step was carried out by localities carefully but also very urgently and resolutely. As a result, 500 poor households were supported to build new houses and repair houses, with a total budget allocated by the Provincial People's Committee of 41.5 billion VND. To date, the province has started construction on 495/500 houses; 5 households have postponed construction until 2024.

Livelihood support, creating resilience for the poor

Identifying livelihood support as an important foundation to create momentum for the poor to rise up, in the past year, all levels, sectors and localities have paid special attention to vocational training consultancy, job creation, and creating conditions for loans to expand production, helping the poor have more conditions to rise up.

In 2023, our province has helped over 6,000 poor households, near-poor households and newly escaped poverty households to borrow preferential loans from the Social Policy Bank to develop production; over 5,000 workers received loans to support job creation, maintenance and expansion.

One of the key projects, expected to create livelihoods to help the poor rise up, is Project 4 on vocationaleducation and sustainable employment development. To effectively implement Project 4, since the beginning of 2023, localities have promoted vocational training for workers from poor households, near-poor households, newly escaped poverty households, and low-income workers on mass media.

The Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs has coordinated to organize dozens of training conferences, instructing over 2,000 local officials to carry out investigations and surveys on training needs and training occupations to collect information on the vocational training needs of workers. The Provincial Employment Service Center is equipped with information technology equipment to serve the construction of a database of job search and job seekers.

Since the beginning of the year, the Center has collected information and entered data on the job search needs of 7,000 workers and 1,500 labor recruitment demand forms of 750 enterprises in the province onto the website storing the employment database of the Department of Employment as prescribed. In addition, the Center has organized 40 job fairs, bringing job opportunities to local workers, including rural workers and workers from poor and near-poor households. With the effective contributions of the Provincial Employment Service Center, in 2023, the whole province will create jobs for 19,400 people, reaching 100% of the annual plan.

In addition, social protection beneficiaries also received practical attention from the province. In 2023, the whole province visited and presented over 150,000 gifts, worth nearly 61.5 billion VND to beneficiaries, the elderly, poor households, near-poor households, households in difficult circumstances and social protection beneficiaries on the occasion of the Lunar New Year. The Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs also directed and guided localities to implement social protection policies for over 49,000 beneficiaries...

With the province's practical and meaningful policies and efforts to effectively implement poverty reduction support programs and projects in localities, the province's poverty reduction work in 2023 has achieved many outstanding results. According to the review results at the end of 2023, the whole province has 5,905 poor households, accounting for 1.86% (down 0.5% compared to 2022); 7,207 near-poor households accounting for 2.27% (down 0.54% compared to 2022).

Article and photos: Dao Hang

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