Village chief devoted to the people

Mr. Phan Van Thang (second from right) received a certificate of merit from the Provincial People's Committee for his outstanding achievements in the new rural construction movement.

Implementing Directive 08 of the Standing Committee of Nghe An Provincial Party Committee on promoting the mobilization of farmers to "consolidate and exchange plots", Quynh Yen commune has issued a Resolution, a plan to direct and assign responsibility to villages and hamlets to mobilize people to implement. However, with the mindset of being afraid of change and the fear of redistribution, their families will have to receive the land deeply or forcefully, so most of the people do not agree.

Successfully implementing this Directive is not easy for some villages, especially in village 8. In 2015, while some other villages in the locality made efforts to overcome difficulties and successfully solved the problem of land conversion, in village 8, within 2 years, the village chief was still struggling to find a solution to mobilize the people and there were times when it seemed impossible to implement it. For many different reasons, but the core is that people are afraid of drawing lots for deep and shallow fields, which are difficult to cultivate.

Mr. Thang often visits households to grasp people's thoughts and aspirations.

At that time, Mr. Phan Van Thang was simply an ordinary citizen, but when participating in the extended village meetings, he had good ideas, "clearing the blockage" for the issue of land consolidation and plot exchange. Thanks to that, Mr. Thang was trusted by the parishioners and temporarily elected to the village land conversion committee. Once he had a role, Mr. Thang, based on the old land division list that the hamlet committee had made, analyzed the reasons why the people did not agree, and from there came up with appropriate decisions and methods of mass mobilization.

Accordingly, he proposed to the hamlet committee to divide more land for people in deep areas, specifically, this 1 sao field should be divided further for families receiving this land up to 1.2 sao or 1.4 sao. As for areas that are easy to produce, often giving high crop yields, divide from 500 m²down to 400 m²/mouth. With the plan to bring fairness to parishioners, 100% of the people agreed and unanimously agreed to implement it.

Village chief Phan Van Thang propagates policies through the village's public address system.

Within just 10 days of the last month of 2015, the village had basically completed the land conversion, from 100 plots, down to less than 50 plots. The large fields and large banks made it easier to apply mechanization to production, and crop efficiency was significantly improved. After the success of this work, Mr. Phan Van Thang was trusted by the villagers to be elected as the village chief to replace the old village chief who had retired.

Always try to fulfill your role

The entire village 8 has 176 Catholic households with 1,065 people. After taking over the job at the end of 2015, Mr. Thang immediately started leading the village to build a new rural area, in a difficult situation in a rural area where people's lives were still difficult and all the village's movements had fallen to the bottom of the whole commune.

However, thanks to his dynamism, Mr. Thang has promoted the collective intellectual strength and the pioneering spirit of the village cadres, thereby creating consensus and joint implementation among the people. Thanks to that, village 8 has really transformed itself, the face of the countryside has changed rapidly, that is, 100% of the village roads and alleys have been concreted, spacious and airy, and high-rise buildings have sprung up everywhere.

It is noteworthy that the number of Catholic families having many children has decreased significantly. Previously, each household had 7-11 children, but thanks to propaganda, now the maximum is only 4 children. The people's lives have improved significantly, so the cultural, artistic and sports movements of the village have developed strongly. "The achievement is thanks to understanding the thoughts and aspirations of the people and having a gentle way of persuading them to agree to carry out the movements," Mr. Thang shared.

Deer farming is the strength of village 8.

Regarding rural road construction, as the village chief, Mr. Thang also encountered many difficulties in mobilizing people to donate land to build roads, because in the people's mind "an inch of land is an inch of gold". With the motto of slow and steady wins the race, every day he went to each household to talk, encourage and persuade them.

Thanks to that, from a place where no one wanted to donate land, now the whole village has donated 250m2.^2.With the land, Mr. Thang advised the Party cell to deploy the construction of roads for the villages by following each alley. That is, in which alley there were many households, they gathered and held a meeting, in which the village chief was the one who chaired.

Apart from the cement supported by the State, all budget estimates were discussed and agreed upon by the people and they collected money from each other to implement the road construction. Just like that, the neighborhood committee did not collect any money related to the road construction, so the whole people felt it was public and supported this method. There were households that contributed the most, nearly 6.5 million VND, but they were still happy to pay. Everything was fine, so Mr. Thang mobilized the whole people to build the road and in just one batch, almost all the alleys were concreted.

The village's economy has grown from poverty to strength with many business kiosks.

The only remaining road to the production area is 150m long and 5m wide, and before this road there were only 7 households, so a large amount of funding was needed. At this time, Mr. Thang went to each house along the inter-commune road that had been asphalted by the State and did not have to contribute to the road construction, so he mobilized them to support money to complete the above road section. Finally, thanks to the joint efforts of everyone in the village, it was completed early, contributing to the commune reaching the NTM finish line by the end of 2019. Mr. Thang was also honored to receive a Certificate of Merit from the Provincial People's Committee for his outstanding achievements in the NTM construction movement.

Village Chief Phan Van Thang is an active, creative person with a high sense of responsibility in his work, especially difficult tasks such as building roads, cultural houses, etc., so he has brought high efficiency. Everything Mr. Thang does is in line with the people's wishes, brings practical benefits, so he has won the trust and prestige of the parishioners.

Mr. Bui Huy Thang - Vice Chairman of the Commune People's Council and Secretary of the enhanced Party Cell in Village 8 Party Cell