After a busy morning, Wang Tianhai put a pleasant smile on his face, with some grass clippings on his hair. He said excitedly, "The poverty alleviation team has helped the peasants a lot. They are our mainstay!"
Wang Tianhai, aged 66, has a son with mental disease. His wife is sick in bed with diabetes and cerebral infarction. His daughter, married in the village, had a brain tumor and underwent a major surgery last year. His son-in-law who worked in Dalian a few years ago also suffered from cerebral hemorrhage and has not yet fully recovered. Both families are poverty-stricken.
In April 2017, a village-based poverty alleviation team of China Railway Harbin Group Co., Ltd. was assigned to Weixing Village.
The poverty alleviation team has performed careful investigation on Weixing Village, thoroughly analyzed the causes of poverty, worked out a three-year poverty alleviation plan together with Nierhe Town and Weixing Village, and determined the poverty alleviation direction of industrial development and courtyard economy. That year, the team promoted the goose breeding industry in Weixing Village, set up a collective goose farm in the village, and distributed 50 goslings to each needy family free of charge, which were arranged for collective purchase by the employees of China Railway Harbin Group Co., Ltd. The company also collectively purchased free-ranging poultry, live pigs and some agricultural products to increase income of the needy households, households enjoying the minimum living guarantee and households enjoying the five guarantees in the village.
"They are dispatched by the Party and sincerely help us!" Wang Tianhai cannot help tearing every time when mentioning about the poverty alleviation team. For more than two years, his family and his daughter's family increased their income by nearly RMB 20,000 from raising geese and RMB 30,000 from raising pigs.
In the past two years, with the help of the poverty alleviation team and through the continuous development of goose industry and courtyard economy, all the needy households in Weixing Village have been lifted out of poverty, and the village's infrastructure has reached the poverty overcoming standard of "connection with highways, Internet and radio & television, provision of clinics, village doctors and places of cultural activity". Last year, Weixing Village has completely got rid of its status as provincial poverty-stricken village.
At present, the goose raising industry has come into being in Weixing Village. The courtyard economy of mung bean and agaric has made a lot of profits. The grid-connected power generation of small photovoltaic power stations has increased the village's income by more than RMB 200,000 per year, and the villagers' households have increased their income by more than RMB 1,000 per year.
With the income increase and the broadened way of getting rich, the villagers' hearts have brightened. The village-based poverty alleviation team of China Railway Harbin Group Co., Ltd. was awarded the 2018 excellent village-based working team in the railway system for its outstanding achievements. At China's 6th Poverty Alleviation Day on October 17, this poverty alleviation team won the innovation award of poverty alleviation organizations in Heilongjiang Province.
