Hoang Van Commune: Escaping poverty with preferential loans

Her husband died early, leaving Ms. Than Thi Du (born in 1954), residing in Thong Nhat village, Hop Thinh commune, to raise four children alone. Despite being diligent and hardworking, working in the fields all year round, poverty still haunts her family.

The new, spacious house of Mrs. Than Thi Du's family.

When life seemed to be at a standstill, in 2019, Mrs. Du was entrusted by the Village Savings and Loan Group to borrow 50 million VND from the poor household loan program of the Social Policy Bank. With capital in hand, she and her youngest son and his wife boldly invested in raising pigs, growing vegetables and learning livestock care techniques. Thanks to diligence and thrift, 2 years later, her family paid off all debts and escaped poverty.

In 2021, through the Thong Nhat Village Savings and Loan Group, Ms. Du continued to borrow 50 million VND from the preferential loan program for newly escaped poverty households to renovate and build a new, spacious 2-storey house, becoming a typical example of perseverance and change thanks to policy capital.

Not only Mrs. Du, in the past 5 years, Thong Nhat village has nearly 20 households that have escaped poverty thanks to policy loans. Up to now, the whole village has no poor households. Typically, after accessing preferential loans from clean water, rural environmental sanitation and poor household programs, Mr. Luong Huu Hanh (born in 1987), residing in Thong Nhat village, invested in raising chickens combined with growing orchids in the direction of commodity agriculture . Initially, he only had a few dozen orchid pots, but now he has more than a hundred orchid pots with a stable income. "If it weren't for the initial preferential loan, I probably wouldn't have dared to risk starting a business. Thanks to the State's support policy, my family has escaped poverty and has the conditions to get rich right on our homeland," Mr. Hanh shared.

Mr. Luong Huu Thanh (father of Luong Huu Hanh) introduces his son's orchid growing model.

Hoang Van commune was formed on the basis of merging the communes: Dong Tien, Toan Thang, Hoang Van and Ngoc Son of Hiep Hoa district (old); the total natural area of the commune is 40.23 km2, the population is nearly 52.9 thousand people.

In the period of 2020 - 2025, before the merger, localities have paid attention to implementing many solutions for socio-economic development. In poverty reduction work, identifying preferential capital as a "lever" to help households have more opportunities to escape poverty, the commune has implemented many solutions to bring capital to the subjects.

Accordingly, the commune assigned the organizations and unions to act as "bridges", to take on the responsibility, helping households access capital easily. With the assigned responsibility, 73 Savings and Loan Groups under the commune's unions conducted a review and selection of loans to ensure strict guarantees and to the right subjects. During the capital use process, the individuals assigned to be in charge regularly checked and supervised the repayment of principal and interest according to the commitment; promptly detected and proposed measures to remove obstacles and difficulties right at the grassroots level.

Currently, the commune is implementing 17 preferential credit programs of the Social Policy Bank with 2,701 households borrowing capital, with a total outstanding debt of nearly 207.7 billion VND. Having access to preferential loans to invest in production and livestock development, many households in the commune have risen up, contributing to reducing the rate of poor and near-poor households. At the end of 2024, there were only 98 poor households in the commune, accounting for 0.88%; 174 near-poor households, accounting for 1.57%...

Although there have been many changes and positive results in poverty reduction, through assessment, the poverty reduction results of the commune are not sustainable, there are still households at risk of falling back into poverty; some households have access to preferential loans, but due to lack of production experience, economic efficiency is not high...

To overcome these limitations, in the coming time, associations and unions in the commune will continue to coordinate with the Social Policy Bank to implement credit programs to meet people's borrowing needs. At the same time, they will advise and support people to effectively use loan capital to develop the economy, stabilize their lives, and escape poverty sustainably.

Comrade Le Ngoc Tien, Head of the Economic Department of Hoang Van Commune, said: "In order for households to effectively use preferential capital, we proactively grasp and send cadres to households to guide them, helping households borrow capital to have effective business and production plans to escape poverty. At the same time, we proactively advise the Commune People's Committee to promulgate policies to support agricultural production development to improve productivity, quality, and increase production value."

Article and photos: Sy Quyet

Source: https://baobacninhtv.vn/xa-hoang-van-thoat-ngheo-tu-von-vay-uu-dai-postid430818.bbg