Create appropriate mechanisms to build cultural houses in villages and hamlets

The cultural house of Yen Phu hamlet, Van Thanh commune (Yen Thanh) was built to standard thanks to contributions from local people and mobilized from socialization. Photo: Xuan Hoang

Lack of resources

Nghi Loc district has 2 communes that signed a commitment with the province to reach the NTM target in 2018, namely Nghi Phong and Nghi Dong. Of which, Nghi Phong commune has 2 unmet criteria including market and environment, Nghi Dong commune has 3 unmet criteria including transportation, market and cultural facilities. Thus, to reach the NTM target, Nghi Dong commune still has many burdens.

Due to the lack of budget resources in the commune, the hamlets mobilize resources from contributions from the people and from socialized sources. In case capital cannot be mobilized, the hamlets will initially overcome the problem by upgrading and renovating the cultural house.

Mr. Trinh Van Thai - Head of Hamlet 8, Nghi Dong Commune said: The Hamlet has enough area to build a cultural facility area, but to meet the criteria of a cultural house and sports grounds, the fence is not yet met. Therefore, from now until August 2018, the Hamlet will mobilize people to contribute money to build a sports ground for young people and the elderly; renovate and upgrade the cultural house, build a wall around the campus...

In Yen Thanh district, there are 6 communes registered with the province to reach the NTM finish line in 2018, of which 4 communes have not completed the cultural infrastructure criteria including: Ly Thanh, Van Thanh, Khanh Thanh, Duc Thanh.

Mr. Hoang Van Chin - Chairman of Ly Thanh Commune People's Committee said: In the past time, the locality has made great efforts to implement the criteria to strive to complete 16 rural criteria, but 2 criteria have not been completed, including: Traffic and cultural facilities (except for 1 market criterion that has not been implemented). The most difficult is the cultural facilities criterion, because this criterion is implemented by the hamlet, while the people have just contributed a large amount of money to build roads.

Arriving at hamlet 7 of Ly Thanh commune, when the people were holding a meeting to discuss this issue. Hamlet chief To Minh Dai said: This is the third meeting to discuss the content of building a hamlet cultural house, the level of contribution has not yet been agreed upon, because it depends on many factors. Although the location for building the hamlet cultural house has been planned by the commune with an area of ​​2,000 m2, the ground has now been cleared and construction is ready to start. The hamlet has estimated the cost of building the cultural house at about 350 million VND.

Many hamlet cultural houses are “waiting” to be upgraded. Photo of hamlet 7 cultural house, Ly Thanh commune (Yen Thanh). Photo by Xuan Hoang

Create appropriate support mechanisms

According to regulations in building new rural areas, the construction of cultural houses in hamlets is invested by hamlet level. However, because the economic conditions of the people are still difficult, while they still have to contribute to implement new rural criteria, the construction of cultural houses in hamlets is often very difficult. Therefore, in some localities, support mechanisms have been created to suit actual conditions.

Mr. Hoang Van Chin - Chairman of Ly Thanh Commune People's Committee added: To create conditions for 2 hamlets to build cultural houses, the commune has specific solutions: For hamlet 8, the commune will dismantle the communal cultural house to build a new one, the materials will be used to support hamlet 8 to build a cultural house, the hamlet will mobilize social resources for the lack of funds. For hamlet 7, the commune will use a budget of 54 million VND from the compensation for land clearance of the commune to support.

In addition, the commune will propose to the district to sell the area of ​​the old cultural house (due to insufficient area) and reserve a percentage of the commune's money to support hamlets in building cultural facilities at the new planned location. For the remaining 8 hamlets, the commune will support each hamlet 15 million VND to purchase equipment for the hamlet cultural house.

Mr. Nguyen Van Hang - Deputy Chief of Office of the Provincial New Rural Development Program Coordination said: Building a hamlet cultural house is mainly using capital from people's contributions and socialization.

Localities need to mobilize people to contribute in many appropriate ways. However, in recent times, some districts have created policies to support localities in building cultural houses in hamlets, in order to reduce contributions for people, especially in difficult areas. Therefore, based on actual conditions, localities need to create mechanisms to support hamlets and villages in building cultural facilities to reach the NTM finish line as planned.

Up to now, 100% of districts, towns, communes, hamlets and villages in the province have planned to build cultural institutions according to the new rural planning. The number of hamlets, villages and blocks with cultural houses and sports areas that ensure operation is 5,298/5,888 (reaching 90%); meeting the criteria of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is 4,120/5,888 (reaching 70%).