Utilize the people's strength to serve the people.

(Baonghean)In Bac Phuc Hoa hamlet, Hung Tay commune (Hung Nguyen district), we heard many stories from the locals about veteran and hamlet leader Dang Xuan My, spoken with love, respect, and admiration. He is a man deeply imbued with President Ho Chi Minh's teaching: "A hundred times easier tasks are impossible without the people's support, but a thousand times more difficult tasks can be accomplished with the people's participation."

Visiting Bac Phuc Hoa hamlet today, the village roads and alleys are wide, clean, and paved with concrete; the hamlet's cultural center is well-built; and the face of this rural area, which is predominantly Catholic, is increasingly improving. Bac Phuc Hoa hamlet has 118 households with 381 inhabitants, of which 25% are Catholic. The lives of the people here mainly depend on agricultural production, but when the local authorities launch contribution campaigns, the people all agree and respond, especially to the movement to build new rural infrastructure.

Under the leadership of the Party Committee and the village committee, spearheaded by Village Head Dang Xuan My, in early 2012, Bac Phuc Hoa village mobilized residents to contribute 180 million VND to build a cultural center. In the final months of the year, with government support in the form of cement, Village Head Dang Xuan My continued to encourage residents to contribute to expanding rural roads with concrete, in accordance with the new rural development criteria. In a short time, the officials and people of Bac Phuc Hoa village worked together, contributing money and labor to complete over 1.2 km of concrete roads within the village, with a total value of nearly 1.8 billion VND.

In an agricultural village, raising such a large sum of money in such a short time is no easy feat. Explaining this, Village Head Dang Xuan My said: “We established a fundraising committee that included respected elderly parishioners who are trusted by the community. We went to each family to spread the word, explaining in detail that contributing to the construction of the community center would provide them with a place for activities and their children to play; contributing to road construction would make travel easier and cleaner for the people themselves. All contributions and expenditures were transparent and democratic, with everyone involved in the discussions.”

Thanks to effective public awareness campaigns, many households, in addition to their contributions based on the number of family members, also donated extra. For example, the Phung Van Mau family, consisting of five Catholics, contributed 9 million VND in addition to their 9 million VND contributions for both phases of the community center and concrete road construction, and volunteered to donate an extra 5 million VND. In just one year, the Phung Van Mau family contributed 14 million VND to the village, a significant amount for a farming family.

Mr. Nguyen Dinh Hien's family contributed over 10 million VND. Mr. Hien shared: "The reason our people wholeheartedly participate in all movements initiated by the hamlet is because here, any matter, big or small, is discussed and agreed upon by the people. I see that the Hamlet Head and the Party Branch Secretary are very enthusiastic and always dedicated to collective work, so we trust and unanimously support them. In just one year, Hamlet Head Dang Xuan My and the Hamlet Front Committee mobilized the people to contribute nearly 2 billion VND to build a cultural center and roads. When asked about the secret to mobilizing the people's strength, Mr. My shared: "To get people to participate, first of all, we ourselves must set an example, then we mobilize the cadres and Party members, and only then do we reach out to the people."

Along with mobilizing people to contribute to the completion of new rural construction projects, village head Dang Xuan My, together with the Party Committee, the Fatherland Front Committee, the village committee, and other organizations, went to each family to propagate and encourage people to change the structure of crops and livestock towards commodity production. Currently, high-quality rice varieties account for over 70% of the rice fields in Bac Phuc Hoa village. People also take advantage of their free time during the agricultural off-season to do additional work and develop trade and services to increase their income. As a result, the average per capita income of the village has now reached 23 million VND/person/year.

Aware of his responsibility to set an example and proactively take the lead in studying and following President Ho Chi Minh's moral example, Hamlet Head Dang Xuan My has demonstrated his leadership role, setting an example of self-cultivation and self-improvement through concrete actions, considering this a fundamental solution to inspire the masses to follow suit. For 10 consecutive years, Bac Phuc Hoa hamlet has had no one having a third child and no one engaging in social vices. In 2012, Bac Phuc Hoa hamlet was one of two hamlets in Hung Nguyen district to be recognized as a Cultural Village. These achievements are primarily thanks to the dedicated hamlet head, wholeheartedly committed to his work – a person who knows how to harness the people's strength to serve the people.

Thanh Tam (Hung Nguyen Radio Station)