The simple work of a deputy commune secretary

(Baonghean)- With dark skin and simple clothes, the first time I met him, I thought he was a real "old farmer", but I was wrong. He is Nguyen Van Luu - Standing Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Hung Chau commune (Hung Nguyen).

Mr. Luu confided: “I work as a commune official, but after office hours I am a real farmer. Currently, I am receiving nearly 2 hectares of highland to renovate and grow rice. Not long ago, I also collected garbage in residential areas.”

Mr. Luu rolled up his pants and led me to the fields, to the fields that he had invested in himself. Mr. Luu confided: This is the Tram field, which used to be a highland area. Some people in the commune had received it to grow rice, but after a period of ineffectiveness, they all returned it to the commune because the fields were fragmented and had no irrigation water. Seeing that the land had been abandoned for a long time, in 2010, he proposed to contract it with the commune to convert it into rice fields. With the commune's consent, he went home to discuss it with his wife, but his wife strongly objected, for many reasons: First, his two children were still in school, and his wife opened a restaurant in Vinh City, so he could not do it alone. Second, no one in that area had ever grown rice. Although his wife and children did not agree, he was still determined to do it.

First, he planned each area, hired people to dig and build banks, dredged ditches, and built a dam to proactively irrigate. The entire 3.7 hectares of highland, after only a short time, was planned into 7 flat fields, growing 2 favorable rice crops each year, costing 30 million VND to hire workers to dig and build. Next, he invested 80 million VND to buy a plow, a harvester, and a motor sprayer to serve production. When the season came, he personally drove the plow to plow the land, hired people to plant, and took care of all the care himself. With 2 rice crops a year, and with proper care and enough water for irrigation, Tram Dong area always had a bumper crop. The winter-spring crop usually yielded 8-9 tons of rice, and the summer-autumn crop yielded about 5 tons of rice. Although the yield was not as high as in favorable lands, such highland was already a success. According to calculations, each year 13 tons of rice are harvested, after deducting all costs, from hiring workers to investing in fertilizers, seeds, etc., the remaining amount is 35 million VND, equivalent to 6 tons of rice, the rest is profit. Mr. Luu confided: "I do this to show people the effectiveness of human investment, "with human effort, stones can turn into rice".

Mr. Luu (far right) and Hung Chau residents joined forces to collect garbage in the area.

As a local official who is not afraid of hardships and difficulties, and has agricultural equipment at home, in early 2013, Mr. Luu also took on another heavy job, which is to pilot the collection of household waste in the residential community. Hung Chau is the central commune of the communes in the southeast of Hung Nguyen district, with 4 schools and many agencies located in the area and especially Mi market - a place for trade exchange in the region. Before 2012, in Hung Chau commune, people threw waste everywhere, from the central area, to the eco-tourism routes along Lam river, Provincial road 558, along dike 42, or the river banks, canal banks, and even on the commune's stadium.

Faced with increasingly serious environmental pollution, affecting people's health and village beauty, in early 2013, the Party Committee and the government of Hung Chau commune implemented a project to collect waste. Initially, the implementation of the project encountered many difficulties, such as people's awareness still taking the issue of environmental pollution lightly, and the team of professional staff did not have experience in developing and implementing the project. In order to firmly direct and gradually make people understand the importance of solving environmental pollution, Mr. Luu volunteered to set up a garbage collection team and act as a pilot for 3 months. With the method of the commune contracting with the Vinh City Urban Environment Company to collect twice a month, when the collection day was approaching, he used his family's homemade vehicle, a multi-function tractor, as a tractor to work with the members of the garbage collection team to each household to the commune's transfer station. With this method, the waste accumulated in previous areas and daily waste from the people have been collected at one source.

Mr. Nguyen Van Luu happily said: “Environmental protection and disease prevention work is the responsibility of the whole society. To raise awareness among people, with the responsibility of a cadre, I took on the role of team leader of the commune's garbage collection team for the first 3 months, and also used my own means to transport garbage to the collection site without taking money from the commune and the people. Through both action and persistent propaganda, people can see the benefits of garbage collection, thereby changing awareness to protect the environment together.”

Thanks to the enthusiasm and determination of the Standing Deputy Secretary of the Commune Party Committee, the movement to collect waste in Hung Chau commune has been actively participated by organizations and unions. Leading this movement is the Commune Women's Union, which has mobilized women to participate in environmental sanitation, collecting waste in public areas of the commune and hamlets to the transfer site. At the same time, the union has also stepped up propaganda, mobilizing women members and families to collect and classify household waste every day so that on the new regulated date, the collection team's vehicles can be brought to each household to transfer to the collection site. From March to June 2013, Hung Chau has transported more than 200m3 of household waste in the area to the province's collection site, of which over 150m3 is waste that has been accumulated for many years. Thanks to that, the village roads and alleys in Hung Chau are clean and beautiful, and people have a better awareness of environmental protection.

With his creative work, both in words and deeds, creating changes in local movements, recently, the Standing Deputy Secretary of the Commune Party Committee Nguyen Van Luu was honored by the Hung Nguyen District Party Committee as a typical example in "Studying and following the moral example of Ho Chi Minh".

Article and photos: Xuan Hoang