Preserving village culture in building new rural areas in Hung Phu

(Baonghean) -Hung Phu is located on Lam River, about 15 km south of Hung Nguyen district center, with a natural area of ​​over 426 hectares, of which nearly 150 hectares are agricultural land. The people are diligent and hard-working, so the commune has many advantages.for agricultural and aquaculture development.

However, entering the new development stage, most of the labor force has not been trained, the application of scientific and technical advances in intensive production is still limited, so productivity and labor efficiency are not high. In addition, the essential infrastructure is degraded and has not been invested synchronously, becoming an obstacle in the process of agricultural and rural modernization of the commune.

Faced with the above reality, entering the implementation of new rural construction, the Commune Steering Committee determined that propaganda and mobilization is a very important task, in which the principle of "People know, people discuss, people do, people inspect" is thoroughly understood to maximize democracy and mobilize people's resources. Thanks to that, in 5 years, from 2012 to 2016, Hung Phu has mobilized nearly 107 billion VND, of which people contributed over 48 billion VND to successfully implement 18/18 criteria (the commune is exempted from rural market criteria).

Hung Phu Commune Administrative Center. Photo: Nguyen Hai

Hung Phu commune has prioritized significant resources for the transport and irrigation sectors. Of which, over 22 billion VND has been invested to build 4.5 km of commune roads, 3.39 km of village roads, 6.77 km of alley roads and upgrade 13 km of main roads within the fields; build an additional pumping station to increase the total pumping capacity to 2,000 m3/h, and solidify 5 km of level 1, 2, 3 canals and nearly 5 km of drainage canals; thereby ensuring irrigation water for production and people's daily needs in the area.

Another priority that Hung Phu commune is interested in and determined to invest heavily in is cultural institutions. Because at the same time, the cultural facilities have degraded and need a large new investment, this is the group of criteria that the commune is most concerned about and invests the most effort in. Therefore, when building a new rural area, the commune must prioritize planning and building a new administrative center. Along with renovating and upgrading 8/8 hamlet cultural houses, the commune mobilized investment resources of nearly 10 billion VND to build a new administrative center of quite a large scale, including a 2-storey office building, 20 offices; a multi-functional cultural house, a standard campus and sports field.

Recess time for students at Hung Phu Kindergarten. Photo: Nguyen Hai

The upgrading and putting into use of cultural institutions from communes to hamlets not only brings practical benefits to the people but also creates a new look for the locality, contributing to the restoration and embellishment of traditional cultural values. Hung Phu has 2 national historical and cultural relics (Lam Thanh Mountain historical relic and Bach Lieu Trang Nguyen temple) and 1 provincial cultural relic. Thanks to the planning of residential areas being done quite early, today Hung Phu is not only known as a land with many historical relics and famous landscapes, with many successful students of Hung Nguyen district, but also a new rural commune with a strong identity of the rice-growing countryside of Nghe An.

Currently, in the field of public health care, the commune also focuses on building a team of doctors and medical staff with solid expertise and good medical ethics. Although there are still many shortages, in 2011, the commune invested 10 billion VND, of which over 9.5 billion VND came from support from superiors to upgrade the medical station's facilities. After being recognized as meeting the National Health Criteria in 2015, the station is a typical example of initial health examination for people in Hung Nguyen district, examining an average of over 4,000 patients each year.

Harvesting vegetables and spices by farmers in Hung Phu commune. Photo: Nguyen Hai

In order to create more jobs and increase income for people, Hung Phu organizes many production training courses and finds capital to support production models, creating more jobs. Along with expanding the area of ​​large-scale fields to increase income per unit area, through mobilizing people to consolidate land and convert land, the commune encourages people to diversify crops, strongly develop household economy, farm economy; encourages people to borrow capital from banks or credit funds to do business and export labor. Thanks to that, in addition to rice, Hung Phu has a specialized vegetable and spice growing area of ​​nearly 30 hectares, generating hundreds of millions of VND/year; has dozens of construction teams and over 70 workers going abroad to work.

Although it is a purely agricultural commune, 30% of the total nearly 1,500 workers work stably in agencies, units, and factories in the commune and surrounding areas. In the past 5 years, the average income has nearly doubled, reaching 26 million VND/person in 2016; the poverty rate has decreased from 13% to 3.9%.

Peaceful countryside of Hung Phu new rural area. Photo: Nguyen Hai

Looking back at the process of building a new rural area in Hung Phu commune, although starting with only 8 criteria, the implementation process sometimes encountered difficulties and challenges, but with the timely support of the province, Hung Nguyen district and the efforts of the entire political system, and the consensus of the people, the commune completed the task of reaching the new rural area on time.

Entering the new phase, Hung Phu is determined to overcome difficulties and limitations, continue to mobilize people to maintain and improve the quality of achieved criteria, and strive to turn Hung Phu into a strong rural commune in terms of economy, imbued with the identity and cultural space of Nghe An countryside.

Pham The Son

(Chairman of People's Committee of Hung Phu commune)