Confident women, rising to become masters from suitable livelihoods
(Baonghean.vn) - Finding livelihoods to help women escape poverty and become rich is being implemented by women's associations at all levels in many different forms. Thereby, helping women gradually become independent and assert themselves.
Support for poor women
Nearly 7 years ago, grief suddenly struck Vo Thi Ha and her children in Trong hamlet, Nghia Tho commune, Nghia Dan district when her husband suddenly had an accident and passed away on his way home from work. At that time, her husband was just over 40, and Ha was still young. Her husband died early, leaving her and her 3 children, of which the two eldest daughters were in high school, the third child had not yet entered first grade.
Recalling those difficult days, Ms. Ha and her children could not forget the hardships and difficulties when the family lost its main breadwinner. After the pain of losing her husband came the economic pressure when she alone had to manage to feed 4 mouths in the family and pay for her children's monthly school fees.
While struggling to make a living, fortunately, in early 2020, the District Women's Union had a source of capital for single women, those in difficult circumstances, and families in poor and near-poor households. Knowing the difficult situation of her family, the Union gave her priority to support 2 goats, in the form of borrowing goats to pay goats. The amount of support was not much, but it was the first step for her to gradually rise out of poverty.
Coming to Trong village now, when asked about the goat raising model, everyone knows Ms. Ha, because she is famous for being a good goat farmer. While many families in the area, the goats brought home to raise struggled for a long time but did not develop, for her, although starting with only 2 goats, after only a few years they grew rapidly, helping her family have a stable income.
Sharing about this, Ms. Ha added: Currently, our goat pen has 14 goats and if sold regularly, each year we can earn tens of millions of dong and turn over quickly. In addition, I also raise livestock, poultry, grow rice, fruit trees and cook for a group of workers in the commune. The current economy is not good, but my mother and I do not have to worry about money for each meal like before. The two eldest daughters have also finished school and are working and have a stable income, so they have helped their mother a lot.
Nghia Tho is commune 135 of Nghia Dan district, with many economic difficulties. To help women escape poverty and develop the economy, the Women's Union of the commune has many forms of loans and mutual assistance. As with Ms. Ha's model, by supporting goats for goats, after only a few years, many other households in the commune have also been provided with breeds to develop livestock. In the hamlets, members contribute capital to support members in developing the economy and becoming rich.
Coming to the fruit tree growing model of Ms. Le Thi Hong - a member of the commune's Agricultural Cooperative, she said: After just over 3 years of borrowing capital and investing in planting 450 guava trees, my family has had a stable income. Currently, guava bears fruit all year round, if we harvest twice a week, we will have more than ten million VND per month. Meanwhile, guava does not require much care, the consumption is stable and the economic value is much higher than growing rice.
Supporting women's economic empowerment is one of the tasks that the Women's Union of Nghia Dan district is interested in, in which the focus is mobilizing capital sources to create livelihoods to help women develop the economy.
According to the survey, from the beginning of 2023, the whole district still has 1,447 poor women's union members and 1,608 near-poor women's union members. Therefore, we have had many measures to help each other so that households can improve their economic development, such as supporting vocational training, loans, supporting breeding, science and technology, and especially deploying many capital sources for members to borrow capital and develop the economy. Thanks to that, up to now, we have helped 854 households and 51 households have escaped poverty and near-poverty sustainably.
To let women rise up and take control
The seafood processing facility of Ms. Le Thi Phuong's family is located right on the main road of Sao Nam in Nghi Thu ward, Cua Lo town. During the low season, on average, there are 7-8 workers working every day. Meanwhile, during the tourist season, the number of workers is up to nearly 30 people. As a regular worker at this facility, Ms. Nguyen Thi An said: I have worked here for 2 years with many different jobs, sometimes opening clams, sometimes working in the cold storage or supporting the business owner. The current income is from 7-9 million VND/month, helping the family cover a lot of daily living expenses. However, I am determined to both work and learn because in the future I will also open a seafood production and business facility.
More than 10 years ago, Ms. Le Thi Phuong also had the dream of becoming a business owner. The initial journey was difficult because she and her husband only finished 12th grade and their economic conditions were not abundant. Originally from Nghi Thiet commune, where the sea industry is developed, the initial starting point of the profession was to buy clams from fishermen to sell to tourism businesses in Cua Lo town. After a while, due to unstable supply, she discussed with her husband to borrow capital to invest in clam farming and they were the third household in the commune to implement this model. Currently, the total clam farming area of her family is 5 hectares and brings a stable income as well as creates jobs for many workers in the area.
From this starting point, Ms. Phuong and her husband switched to seafood business. Ms. Phuong also shared that during the business process, there were many times when she lacked capital and was supported by the Women's Union to borrow from 5 - 30 million VND and now 100 million VND. This amount of money greatly supported her family in the first steps of starting a business such as investing in buying more goods and paying workers.
During her business, she also kept in mind to create prestige and improve competitiveness in the market. From her successes in production, Ms. Phuong is now the leader in the activities of the Women's Union of Nghi Thu Ward. Currently, every year she gives dozens of gifts to members, women's union, and regularly helps a disabled or disadvantaged case. At the same time, she participates in sponsoring many programs of the union and the locality.
Talking about the production and business models in the area, Ms. Phung Thi Mo - President of the Women's Union of Nghi Thu ward is very happy because currently in Nghi Thu there are many business households owned by women such as the model of Ms. Le Thi Phuong's family with many business lines such as cereal production, rice paper production, seafood processing...
To support women, over the years, the AssociationWomenThe town and ward have organized many loan programs and mobilized savings in the ward and association: In addition to supporting the connection of capital sources, we have promoted propaganda work, encouraged women to start businesses and coordinated with relevant departments and branches to find output for products. The good news is that currently, in the ward, there are no poor members; there are 14 near-poor households left, we will mobilize and implement many solutions to eliminate near-poor households. Our motto is to create conditions for women to develop the economy, avoid dependence and waiting for support from the State.
According to the synthesis of the Provincial Women's Union, in recent years, the unions at all levels have coordinated with the Social Policy Bank and the Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development to support loans through trust and credit for women to borrow with a total capital of 3,888 billion 875 million VND for 95,469 households. In addition, the unions at all levels have also mobilized local resources from members such as: Maintaining and managing savings well at the branch, the savings balance is 41 billion 190 million VND, with 295,695 members.
Many branches also carry out activities to support working days or exchange work for families lacking labor, creating opportunities for member families to maintain production and ensure income, or models of collecting recycled waste to raise funds to support livelihood models for poor and disadvantaged women are deployed at all branches in the province.
Over the past 6 years, implementing the Project "Supporting Women Start-ups for the 2017-2025 period", the Women's Union at all levels has received 1,946 start-up/business ideas from women registered for the competition; selected, reviewed, and classified 186 feasible ideas to submit to and win high prizes in competitions organized at the provincial and central levels.