Building cultural life in religious areas: Experience from practice

(Baonghean) - With the motto of "Respecting God, loving the country", "Living the gospel in the heart of the nation", in recent times, Catholics in the province have actively joined hands to build a new cultural life in residential areas, living a good life and good religion, contributing to changing the face of their homeland.

Duc Thanh is the only Catholic hamlet in Nghi Hoa commune (Nghi Loc) to be recognized as a Cultural Village in 2014. Mr. Nguyen Van Cuong, the Hamlet Chief, excitedly said that Duc Thanh people have a tradition of solidarity and mutual support for generations. Today, that spirit is even more enhanced and promoted by the people anytime, anywhere. Any policy launched by the commune, the hamlet executive committee directly conveys it to the people right in hamlet meetings, party cell meetings, and mass organization meetings. For example, in building a cultural village, the most difficult thing for Duc Thanh hamlet at that time was that the system of cultural and sports facilities was not yet guaranteed, and the hamlet did not have a cultural house for activities and meetings.

Faced with that situation, the hamlet executive committee agreed: We must propagate to the people, mobilize social resources to build the hamlet cultural house. This policy was discussed publicly by the hamlet executive committee at meetings, reaching an agreement that each family would donate 800 thousand VND. In that call, the hamlet chief, the party cell secretary, and the heads of mass organizations were the pioneers in contributing. Only a short time later, Duc Thanh started construction of the cultural house. In September 2012, after nearly half a year of construction, the project was inaugurated in the excitement of the people of the whole hamlet.

Children of Cultural Village, Hamlet 10 (Dien Thinh - Dien Chau) play in the yard of Tan Da Parish.

Thanks to the consensus of all people and the policy of socializing cultural institutions, up to now, Duc Thanh hamlet has basically completed the institutional system with a total value of 600 million VND (of which the district supported 60 million VND, the commune supported 20 million VND), the rest was contributed by the people and called for socialization from local businesses. Duc Thanh has also been very successful in promoting traditional industries in addition to the process of agricultural modernization and labor export. Currently, Duc Thanh's rice paper, peanut candy, sticky rice wine and herbs brands have been affirmed in the market, bringing stable income to the people. Thanks to the additional job, the average income of each household reached over 26 million VND/year. The rate of cultural families in 2014 reached 78%. Duc Thanh hamlet is a typical cultural hamlet living "Good life, good religion".

Hamlet 10, Dien Thinh commune, Dien Chau district has more than 51% of the population being Catholics. Thanks to the promotion of propaganda about the purpose, meaning and content of the campaign "All people unite to build a cultural life in residential areas", "living a good life, living a good religion", Hamlet 10 has become a typical bright spot in the movement to build cultural villages in areas with Catholic people. Coming to Hamlet 10, we felt the urgent working atmosphere of the people here. The sound of peanut grinding machines echoed throughout the village. The whole hamlet has up to 70 households who both do farming and make peanuts. When the season comes, people spread out to buy everywhere in the district, in the province, and even Thanh Hoa, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh... to grind and then import to agents for export. Each crop like that, the whole hamlet buys from 3,000 - 4,000 tons. The hamlet has 64 children working abroad, so people's lives here are very good, the poverty rate is only 0.2%.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoa - Party cell secretary said: Hamlet 10 has 163 households with more than 800 people, of which more than half are Catholics belonging to Tan Da parish, Trung Song parish. Although it is a purely agricultural hamlet, with the dynamism and development of service industries and labor export, the income of the people here has reached 32 million VND/person/year. The people's lives are quite prosperous, the appearance of the hamlet is spacious as today is also thanks to the solidarity, consensus, sharing of difficulties, and mutual support of the people here, both Catholic and non-Catholic.

This is the 7th year that the hamlet has maintained the title of district-level cultural village, with 87-90% of families achieving the title of Cultural Family every year. To create solidarity among the religious and non-religious people, the hamlet executive committee as well as the parish executive committee have cleverly linked the mass movement to build a cultural life in the residential area with 10 contents of the campaign "living a good life, following the religion" with many ways to please the people. The hamlet cadres have members of the parish executive committee participating, so all activities of the religious and non-religious people are discussed in a unified and harmonious manner.

Mr. Phan Vu, a member of the Executive Committee of Tan Da Parish, said: The cultural lifestyle of the people here has changed a lot, the spirit of solidarity between religions is increasingly tightened. The movements launched and the obligations to the State are all implemented by the people. Every year, the people participate in signing a commitment to prevent social evils, ensure security, order and traffic safety. Cultural and sports activities are all responded to by the people, and clubs have been established and operate very actively. Thanks to that, the hamlet has no social evils, weddings and funerals are carried out economically.

In addition, thanks to the active participation of the Hamlet Executive Committee in coordination with the Parish Executive Committee in many ways to mobilize people, Hamlet 10 is a typical unit of Dien Thinh in land consolidation and plot exchange, from 5 plots/household to less than 2 plots/household now. Implementing the construction of the new rural area, families in the hamlet have contributed 1.2 million VND to build more than 800m of concrete roads, participated in donating land, and contributed labor days to open roads. Mr. Cao Thong, Head of the Cultural Committee of Dien Thinh commune, said: The Steering Committee of the movement "All people unite to build a cultural life in residential areas" of the commune has closely coordinated with the Party Committee, the Hamlet Executive Committee and the Parish Executive Committee to mobilize people to implement the Party's guidelines and policies, the State's laws, especially to widely propagate for people to effectively implement the content of building advanced residential areas, building cultural families and villages.

These are just two of many typical cultural villages in the whole province. Responding to the movement "All people unite to build a cultural life in residential areas, live a good life and follow the religion" continues to receive active attention and direction from districts, cities and towns. The Catholic community has enthusiastically competed to practice a civilized lifestyle in weddings, funerals, festivals, building cultural families, cultural residential areas and cultural villages. Activities and sports are interested and have developed well. During the Lunar New Year, major holidays of the country and the church, parish priests organize cultural exchange activities, arts, football, volleyball between branches, parishes and parishes, creating a harmonious, united, joyful and excited bond in the community.

In addition, the Provincial Catholic Solidarity Committee and the Catholic Solidarity Committees have encouraged the parishioners to effectively carry out movements to build advanced parishes, build cultural families and villages, follow the example of good people and good deeds, care for education, and unite to help each other develop together. Currently, the movement to build a cultural life is developing strongly in the parishioners' community. Many parishes and parishes have not had a third child or more for many consecutive years, such as Yen Due, Trung My, An Hau parishes (Vinh City); Hung Thinh, Thuong Khe - Ke Gai parish (Hung Nguyen)...

T.Thuy - M.Giang