The story of the people who reclaimed the swamp of Dong Van

Building a craft village on a rice monoculture area

No longer are there muddy fields or brackish water ponds, Dong Van hamlet (Quynh Dien, Quynh Luu) is now covered with green by family farms. It is even more joyful that from a monoculture of rice, the people here have boldly brought the bamboo and rattan weaving craft to the village to build a new, stable and prosperous business direction.

Just 6 or 7 years ago, the road from the village to Vinh Loc beach was like a winding eel's spine with a width of less than 2.8m. During harvest time, just one buffalo cart carrying rice or straw on the road would cause traffic to come to a standstill.

But now things are different.

Since the policy of building new rural areas was issued, people have voluntarily contributed money, labor and land with an average of 40 - 50m2 per household.²to build the village road as wide as it is now. The road is nearly 4m wide enough to welcome large trucks following each other to bring thousands of rattan and bamboo products of the people to sell.

The joy of working of the people of Dong Van craft village. Photo: Thanh Quynh

The story of making a living in Dong Van began with unexpected opportunities, when the rice monoculture area changed its life from a non-agricultural occupation. To better understand the village's craft, the Chairman of the Commune Farmers' Association took us to the large yard in front of the 5-room house equipped with many machines and raw materials from rattan and bamboo. Mr. Kien said that this is a factory specializing in importing and exporting goods and training skills for workers in the village.

In that bustling space, there were nearly a dozen women rushing to complete the final stages of the product to be on time for the company's delivery. Seeing us coming with cameras and video recorders, the women immediately called out to each other and pulled a woman in her late 40s out to the yard: "If you guys are filming or taking pictures, remember to film Luan, she used to be a poor family, her husband died early, she raised 3 young children by herself but thanks to knitting she escaped poverty. Luan's income now is more than 5 million VND a month!"

Before the laughter of the women, the President of the Farmers' Association shared with us that the craft village is a "salvation" for many women in difficult circumstances in the village to recover their lives. In addition to Ms. Luan, there are many people like Ms. Nguyen Thi Ngoc and Nguyen Thi Hoa who have also escaped poverty. Even Ms. Tran Thi Lai, who is currently the Head of the Craft Village Management Board, was once in a difficult situation, but she herself found a way to escape poverty through her profession and then pioneered in training many generations to come.

Ms. Tran Thi Lai is one of the pioneers in building Dong Van into a handicraft village of bamboo and rattan weaving, creating jobs for more than 300 workers in Quynh Dien commune (Quynh Luu). Photo: Thanh Quynh

At that time, Mrs. Lai's family life was facing many storms when her husband suddenly passed away, leaving her with 4 children of growing age. Not yet overcome the psychological shock, she was forced to face economic pressure when the main income in the family was only from 6 sao of rice fields. So, when Mr. An proposed teaching the women the craft of bamboo and rattan weaving and then taking care of the products, she immediately signed up to participate. Along with her, about 30 other women came to learn the craft and then set up a cooperative to work.

With a natural talent for weaving, as well as being hard-working and diligent, Ms. Lai gradually became an excellent student among those who were taught the craft by Mr. An. From then on, she was given the responsibility of training more women in the village. Because the village did not have a spacious and well-equipped workshop like it does now, Ms. Lai had to open a vocational training class right at her house. At first, the work was done entirely by hand, from peeling, splitting, and shaving the bamboo strips without any machinery. To produce a finished product, sometimes the fingertips were calloused and bleeding. “I thought that only farming was hard, but it also had its own hardships. The same goes for bamboo and rattan weaving. The important thing is that all the products I made were guaranteed to be sold, so I felt secure. At that time, Phuong Anh Bamboo and Rattan Company guaranteed all the products for the entire cooperative. Each month, we had an additional 1-1.5 million VND to create more income for our families. At that time, 1 million was a lot of money,” Ms. Lai shared.

The skills of the women are increasingly improved and perfected. Photo: Thanh Quynh

In the following 3 years, the women's skills became more and more solid, and the products they made became more and more perfect. Until 2005, the rattan and bamboo production cooperative was granted a Certificate of recognition as a craft village. That was a great joy for Dong Van hamlet. To expand the output for the products, Ms. Lai directly contacted and raised the issue of importing goods for companies and enterprises in the province. From a small production model, up to now, the rattan and bamboo weaving cooperative headed by Ms. Lai has had over 300 workers, from 190/323 households in the hamlet, with an average income of 3 - 4 million VND/person/month. Each year, Dong Van rattan and bamboo weaving village exports about 500 thousand products to the market, bringing in a total income of more than 4 billion VND.

Swamp Clearing

In addition to developing the bamboo and rattan weaving industry, the people of Dong Van craft village are also at the forefront of renovating many ineffective lands. Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Lan - Chairman of the People's Committee of Quynh Dien commune took us to Vinh Loc lagoon. This place was once considered a "dead land", with swampy land and many places affected by salinity, making production efficiency extremely low. It was not until 2006 that the commune government and the people determined to renovate this land to raise aquatic products and poultry such as ducks, geese, and swans.

From a swampy, barren land, Vinh Loc is now covered in green with farms. Photo: Thanh Quynh

One of the pioneering farmers in reclaiming that land was Mr. Ho Van Tam (born in 1970). Mr. Tam had 8 sao of rice fields, but lost 4 sao of them to swamps that could not be cultivated, and the remaining 4 sao could only be cultivated once a year. When the commune had a policy, he turned this area into a pond to raise ducks. From a wild swamp with many snakes, centipedes, and rats living there, in the first year, his family had to invest a lot of effort, sweat, and money to renovate it. The work of dredging the swamp, zoning, building dikes, improving the water source, and then bringing in ducks to raise was so hard that it was hard to describe. At that time, the couple could only encourage each other to try their best, saving every penny they could.

Then the land did not fail the people, Mr. Tam and his wife gave this land a new look with a system of barns, ponds and food storage for ducks, organized and spacious. Not only Mr. Tam, there are now more than 10 households in the village determined to reclaim the swampy area to expand their farms and ranches. The annual income is up to hundreds of millions of dong.

Mr. Lan could not hide his pride when sharing with us: “If ten years ago, the total number of poor households in the hamlet was up to over 20%, now the whole hamlet has only 5 households, accounting for less than 1.5%. Per capita income has also increased to nearly 40 million VND/person/year.

Mr. Ho Van Tam is one of the parishioners who lives a good life and is a pioneer in economic development in Dong Van hamlet. Photo: Thanh Quynh

More specifically, in Dong Van hamlet, there are 15 households of Catholics who always maintain solidarity between Catholics and non-Catholics. Catholics always comply with all policies of the local government, actively develop the economy, eliminate hunger and reduce poverty. At the same time, they are imbued with the direction of living "good life, good religion", "respecting God and loving the country" and becoming typical in the local economic movement. For example, Mr. Ho Van Tam's family is also a Catholic family but is always exemplary in all movements, policies and strategies of the commune and district.

With diligence, creativity, and hard work, Dong Van people have conquered nature and unfavorable lands to develop production and build a prosperous and happy life!”./.

Thanh Quynh