"Prisoners" - the factor that keeps the village peaceful

Reconciling internal conflicts

Mr. Nguyen Tat Hong - a cadre of the Party Committee of Khai Son Commune, Anh Son District, led us along a new, clean, and spacious concrete road to visit the private home of the Party Cell Secretary and Hamlet Chief of Hamlet 4, Nguyen Van Loc. Mr. Nguyen Tat Hong said that before 2017, a group of Hamlet 4 cadres had conflicts, internal disunity, and opposition to each other, leading to a lack of unity in directing and operating general movement activities.

In addition, as a hamlet with many households doing business, and close to National Highway 7, the security and order situation, social evils such as theft, fighting or gambling tend to be complicated, causing instability to the lives and psychology of the people. Along with that, the disagreements in the clearance of the MDF Factory in Tri Le Industrial Park of some households in hamlet 4 make the situation even more complicated.

Secretary and Hamlet Chief of Hamlet 4 Nguyen Van Loc (right) shares with Khai Son commune officials how to mobilize people to build new rural roads. Photo: Hoai Thu

Realizing the unstable situation in hamlet 4, the Khai Son Commune Party Committee asked for instructions from higher levels and at the same time went to the grassroots to find out the cause in order to find a solution. And the core cause was identified as the lack of internal solidarity among hamlet cadres as well as some people.

Therefore, the Khai Son Commune Party Committee organized meetings to solicit opinions, inviting Party Committee officials at higher levels to attend in order to reorganize the staff of Hamlet 4. Accordingly, the Secretary and Hamlet Chief stopped participating in the Party Committee and elected Mr. Nguyen Van Loc as Secretary and Hamlet Chief. Hamlet 4 has 131 households with 426 people, with 8 self-governing groups. However, there are 2 residential groups in conflict with each other. "Therefore, the first thing I did when I took on the job was to resolve the conflict between the 2 self-governing groups. The solution was to separate the households of those 2 residential groups and merge them into other groups," Mr. Nguyen Van Loc shared. After resolving the internal conflicts, Mr. Loc found out the reason for the disagreement in implementing the new rural construction, and the people did not support it because they suspected that the hamlet officials were not transparent in settling the revenue and expenditure of contributions and support.

Students of Khai Son Primary School at the end of school day. Photo: Hoai Thu

Therefore, he discussed with the Party Committee to develop a clear and specific implementation plan, construction method, and personnel assignment, from the implementation of concrete roads, repairing the village cultural house to installing the lighting system. Most of the work was assigned to residential groups and people to control and supervise. And, in less than a year, the people of Hamlet 4 contributed 750,000 VND per household to concretize nearly 1,400m of intra-hamlet roads, and repair the village cultural house to be spacious and clean with a budget of more than 100 million VND. Thanks to consensus and solidarity, the collective movements of Hamlet 4 also became active again.

The self-governing groups stepped up propaganda and patrols to ensure security and order, and repel social evils such as gambling, theft, and fighting. Regarding the recommendations surrounding the site clearance for the construction of the wood factory, in conjunction with the Anh Son District Party Committee's Mass Mobilization Committee, Khai Son Commune officials, and the Party Committee and associations of Hamlet 4, they actively participated in propaganda, mobilization, and dialogue, thus resolving disagreements and handing over the site in full for the project.

Building solidarity between religions

Hamlet 7, Khai Son Commune has a large area, located next to National Highway 7, near the intersection with the Ho Chi Minh Trail, bordering Tan Ky District, bordering Lang Son Commune (Anh Son). In previous years, this was one of the locations with many complexities in drug crimes, security and order, and social evils. In 2018, after taking on the task of village chief, with many concerns, Mr. Nguyen Huu Kim discussed with the Party Committee and authorities to propose many solutions to stabilize the situation.

Officials of Khai Son Commune People's Committee visited the comprehensive farm model of Hamlet 7 Chief Nguyen Huu Kim. Photo: Hoai Thu

Determining that in order to restore security and order and push back social evils, it is necessary to first create solidarity among cadres and people and create healthy playgrounds for people to participate. Village chief Nguyen Huu Kim took the lead in calling on children working far away and people to contribute to building internal village roads and building a village cultural house so that people have a place to exchange and have meetings. In less than a year, village 7 of Khai Son commune has completed a soccer and volleyball field of more than 4,000m2, with an average contribution of 2 million VND per person to build more than 2 km of concrete road, including 600m of grade A road according to new rural standards; building a new spacious village cultural house with a contribution of 400 thousand VND per person...

Mr. Nguyen Huu Kim said that the total cost of construction of the works is about 400 million VND, of which the people contributed 200 million VND. The village chief's family supported the cost of leveling and constructing the village's soccer and volleyball fields with an area of ​​over 4,000 m2. "The village chief Nguyen Huu Kim is the first to do all the work and all the contributions. The revenue and expenditure are public and transparent, so they receive the absolute trust of the people. The Catholic and non-Catholic people unite to build a clean and beautiful village and strong movements" - Mr. Nguyen Tat Hong - an official of the Khai Son Commune Party Committee commented.

Mr. Nguyen Huu Kim (middle) together with the Village Front Committee and the Education Committee have promoted and mobilized people to apply scientific and technical advances and change crop structure in production. Photo: Thai Hien

In addition to creating playgrounds and healthy collective movements, with the attention and support of the Commune People's Committee, 8 residential groups of Hamlet 7 and Hamlet Chief Nguyen Huu Kim have closely coordinated with the Anh Son District Police (the hamlet's sister unit) to increase patrols, grasp the situation of all types of crimes, go to families to propagate and mobilize the whole population to participate in the fight, maintain security and order in the hamlet. Drug addicts have been mobilized to go to drug rehabilitation and return to integrate into the community. Theft crimes have no longer occurred, especially in the area near Khai Son intersection. All unstable phenomena have been promptly reported by the people to the Hamlet Management Board and the District Police for timely prevention solutions.

Therefore, from the most complicated hamlet in terms of security and order in Khai Son commune, up to now hamlet 7 has become a safe and stable locality with the strongest collective movements in the commune, associations and unions participating in commune and district level competitions all achieved high prizes. Hamlet Chief Nguyen Huu Kim himself is a member of the Provincial Catholic Solidarity Committee, and was awarded a Certificate of Merit by the Provincial Fatherland Front Committee and many Certificates of Merit from district to provincial levels.

Mr. Nguyen Huu Kim is not only one of the typical good producers and traders of Khai Son commune, but also an energetic and enthusiastic hamlet chief, who has made many contributions to making the collective movements of hamlet 7 stronger. Photo: Hoai Thu

Talking about the efforts to build internal solidarity and maintain security and order in the village, Mr. Dang Dinh Luc - Secretary of the Party Committee of Khai Son commune said: There is a saying "What cadre, what movement", therefore, cadre work is the most important and must be one step ahead. Determining that village cadres are the people closest to the people, we focus on selecting truly capable, prestigious, enthusiastic, and exemplary people who can fulfill the role of "solidarity center", contributing to creating positive changes for the grassroots such as hamlet 4, hamlet 7...