Ethnic minority hamlet in Nghia Dan pioneers in donating land to open roads

A typical example is Minh Lam hamlet with nearly 100% ethnic minorities. For example, the family of Mr. Lo Van Quang, a Thai ethnic group, volunteered to destroy more than 70 meters of fence and cut down many trees to widen the road. Although the family still has many difficulties, rebuilding a new fence costs a lot of money, but he discussed with his wife and was willing to sacrifice personal interests.

Mr. Lo Van Quang also mobilized the surrounding neighbors to voluntarily donate land to hand over the site to the construction unit. Mr. Quang shared: his wife and he struggled for several years to build the fence, but because of the Party and State's policy, the family volunteered to demolish it.

Many families volunteered to break down solidly built gates and fences. Photo: Dinh Thuy

Not far from Mr. Quang's house, Mr. Hoang Van Khuyen, a Tho ethnic, also volunteered to break down his family's solid gate. Mr. Khuyen said: "It cost more than 20 million VND to build a solid fence and gate, which is not a small amount of money for a farming household like us, but widening the road to make it asphalt will benefit the people first, especially when it rains, so we agreed to participate."

Minh Lam hamlet, Nghia Lam commune has nearly 100% of Thai and Tho ethnic people, people's lives are still difficult. The flood rescue road, ensuring national security and defense, passes through Minh Lam hamlet for more than 1 km, widened by 1-2 m on each side.

When there was a policy to open the road, people agreed very much. 35 households whose roads passed through donated thousands of square meters.²Land, valuable trees were destroyed, 14 households with solid fences and gates in the hamlet volunteered to demolish them to widen the road.

Mr. Vi Van Nguyen - head of Minh Lam hamlet, Nghia Lam commune shared that although the economic life of the people still has many difficulties and shortages, when the policy of building rural roads was discussed and opinions were publicly collected, 100% of households whose land and assets were affected agreed to support the donation of thousands of square meters.²land. Many households saved up to build fences and gates, but they also volunteered to demolish them, including one household with nearly 100 meters of fence.

From the spirit of land donation to open roads of the people of Minh Lam hamlet, nearly 100 households of Nghia Lam commune followed suit, donating thousands of hectares of land, dismantling nearly 700 meters of fence and many valuable trees.

Mr. Le Trung Kien - Chairman of Nghia Lam Commune People's Committee added: Nghia Lam Commune strives to meet the NTM criteria by the end of 2022. To create consensus, Nghia Lam Commune has mobilized the entire political system to participate, reaching high unity in leadership, direction and working methods, promoting the exemplary role of Party members and prestigious people.

Mr. Lo Van Quang, Thai ethnic group, Minh Lam hamlet, Nghia Lam commune, cleans up after demolishing 70m of fence. Photo: Dinh Thuy

The flood rescue route, ensuring national security, passes through Nghia Lam commune for nearly 9 km. The commune has propagated and explained to the people that when the road is completed, it will solve the difficulties for people in traffic, especially during the rainy and flood season. The clearance started in Minh Lam hamlet, and the people here were very in agreement. Thanks to that, the remaining hamlets followed suit. Although at first some households were still hesitant and did not agree, up to now 100% of the households with roads passing through havevolunteer land donation, demolish trees and fences.

“A hundred times easier without the people, it is bearable, a thousand times harder with the people’s help”, from the pioneering spirit of the Minh Lam ethnic minority hamlet, the movement of donating land to build roads in Nghia Lam commune has been spreading widely. Not only state-invested projects but also the opening of roads and rural traffic to build new rural areas are being actively responded to by the people in order to strive for Nghia Lam commune to meet new rural standards by the end of 2022.