Female secretary in the upper Pu Xung

(Baonghean) - Introduced by the Party Committee of Bac Son commune (Quy Hop), we went to Manh village, where the Thai ethnic people gather along the high Pu Xung mountain range to meet a "special" person. That is Ms. Lo Thi Thien - the first and only female Party cell secretary of Bac Son commune at present.

Putting aside the busy household chores and village affairs in the last days of the year, Ms. Lo Thi Thien welcomed us in an ancient stilt house, nestled among the green of fruit trees. The whole Manh village is busy harvesting sugarcane and acacia at this time. From a particularly difficult village with a very high rate of poor households, in recent years, Manh village has "transformed" into one of the rich villages of Bac Son commune, with a total annual income exceeding 5 billion VND. Surely this development is the effort of all the villagers, but not without the role of the leader - the Party cell secretary (?).

Curious as she was, in her conversation with us, Ms. Thien kept repeating that she had not done much, but had the help of all the party members in the cell and the trust and support of all the villagers. Having traveled a lot and interacted with the hamlet team, we somewhat understood the hardships of those who "carry the prison and the general goods" in the hamlet like her. Her main position and low allowance was the secretary of the cell, but she held many jobs without any allowance, such as head of the front work committee, head of the mass mobilization team... and every job was important and needed to be taken care of and could not be neglected.

She said that she still remembers the time she was elected as the Party cell secretary in 2006. At that time, she was praised by the villagers for being diligent, good at housework, and good at farming, but to be the Party cell secretary was unprecedented. The Party cell passed the election results but for several days she was still nervous, having been the head of the village's women's association for many years but being the Party cell secretary was a different story. But then, with the encouragement of the entire Party cell, her brothers and family, she started her new job with the determination to learn and try not to disappoint everyone's trust.

Ban Manh is far from the commune center, making it difficult to travel, making it even more difficult. Among hundreds of worries about household and village matters, she chose the priority of poverty reduction. The village's rice fields were limited to 7.5 hectares, of which only 4 hectares were irrigated; the remaining 3.5 hectares were cultivated by relying on the sky. If one wanted to have enough food and to move forward, one could only look to forest land and develop livestock. The Party cell met and decided to reclaim Thung Manh land, bringing sugarcane as the main crop. Households like Lo Van Vinh, Lo Van Khanh... who pioneered in reclaiming Thung Manh land were fully supported by the Party cell and the hamlet executive committee, and used as a model for people to replicate.

Thung Manh is a wide valley nestled in the middle of the Pu Xung forest, located 10 kilometers away from the village. Previously, people mainly dug the land to grow corn and cassava with fluctuating income. It can be said that bringing sugarcane into Thung Manh was a risk, because the road to the valley was too arduous, and water was scarce in Thung Manh. To get water for daily use and for drinking water for buffaloes and cows, one had to trek up the mountain to Pu Puc spring, adjacent to Tho Son (Anh Son) and carry water back. But then the households built dams to hold back the water, and the land of Thung Manh gradually covered with sugarcane for the sugar factory, to the quiet joy of Party Secretary Luong Thi Thien. The whole village has 95 households, and now there are over 75 households participating in growing sugarcane in Thung Manh. I am very happy that the total sugarcane area is currently 95 hectares, the land is good, the people are diligent so the last crop reached 48 million VND/ha, Thung Manh alone brought the village over 4.5 billion VND. Households like Lo Van Vinh, Lo Van Khanh, Lo Van Khoi... have become rich households of the commune.

To get that much income seems to be a lot of work. The cost is to open roads and build bridges into the valley. With the support of the sugar factory, in recent years, people in the village have contributed 100 million VND, thousands of working days to level and upgrade 10 km of road, build 3 solid concrete bridges. In the role of head of the mass mobilization team, she confided that the secret is to take care of "mobilizing, mobilizing and mobilizing" so that people contribute a little to a lot, and overcome difficulties. In addition to income from sugarcane, people also began to have income from exploiting raw acacia, reaching an average of 8 hectares of forest per household. Growing sugarcane and acacia has reduced the area of ​​grassland, which has led to a slowdown in the development of buffalo and cow herds, but currently, the village has up to 370 buffalo and cows with many households growing grass for livestock. People's lives have improved, and contributing to the construction of village projects has also become more convenient.

For the past 8 years, "standing at the forefront" as the Party cell secretary, Ms. Luong Thi Thien has always completed her tasks excellently. The Party cell, which had only 7 party members in 2006, now has 15 party members, always worthy of being the core of all movements. Her joy is intertwined with the changes of the village and hamlet. She is happy because the people have more "bowls to eat and bowls to save", happy because the cultural life has also been improved when currently the village has no children dropping out of school, 9 of her children are studying at universities and colleges across the country... Dedicated to her work, caring for the people and constantly learning and exploring, Secretary Luong Thi Thien is contributing her efforts to write new, colorful pages for the village in the upper Pu Xung.

Cao Duy Thai