Wulanhua village rises from poverty

Wulanhua village has made great changes since efforts were made to tackle its poverty issues.

Winter arrives, and snow drifts down in Wulanhua, Tongyu county, Baicheng city, bringing a sense of coldness to this small village. But the poverty alleviation project warms the villagers.

Wulanhua is located in the west of Tongyu county. Of its 621 families, 273 once lived in poverty.

"Tongyu was a national impoverished county. People living here mainly depended on the weather," Chen Yan, secretary of Wulanhua village, said.

Earlier this year, Hu Jiafu, vice-governor of Jilin province, was determined to get Wulanhua village out of its poverty.

Wang Xuefan,village secretary, became the special leader of this project.

It is a common problem in impoverished areas that people have difficulty going outside their local area, and that was the primary problem for the poverty alleviation project.

In order to repair the roads, Wang went to the department of transportation in Jilin and Tongyu County four times to report problems with village roads.

Finally, the departments invested more than 17 million yuan ($2.5 million) to built 33.447 kilometers of concrete roads.

But poverty alleviation is just a beginning. Wang believes that the need to pursue fairly well-off and even rich lives comes soon after families overcome poverty.

Therefore he encourages the establishment of sheep raising cooperatives to offer a stable and effective platform for farmers to work.

"Wulanhua is rich in grassland. We are actively communicating with large sheep raising families to build cooperatives as soon as possible. In the future, Wulanhua is expected to be a rich village on the backs of sheep.”"

Wang particularly stresses the spirit of "perseverance", which will motivate the villagers and lead themto the final success of their anti-poverty course in Wulanhua.