Development goals
The regional government has set the goal of eradicating poverty by 2020. During the next five years, it plans to invest 18 billion yuan in 1,216 development programs, most of which are designed to provide employment opportunities for the less well-off or help them to establish cooperatives.
Meanwhile, the authorities will move about 236,000 impoverished people into resettlement projects, and a loan of more than 38 billion yuan has been obtained to finance the process.
The new dwellings have been well-received by many villagers. In Lhasa's Quxu county, the local authorities have relocated 172 households to Sanyou village, where they live in newly built two-story houses that were fully furnished long before the occupants arrived.
Dashon, a 52-year-old resident, said that in the past she and her family had to shelter in a neighbor's house whenever it rained.
"Our house could have collapsed at any minute, and we often feared for our safety," she said.
Sonam Dekyi, a government official in Sanyou, said villagers vote to determine which families will be allowed to move into the new settlement.
"We constantly remind them that moving here is the start of their new lives. They should not be satisfied with the status quo," she said.
In the coming five years, the regional authorities will also provide part-time jobs, such as forest ranger posts, for 500,000 people.
Lu Huadong, deputy head of the Tibet poverty alleviation office, said the government has now entered the personal details of 590,000 officially designated poverty-stricken people to its archives.
"We have identified 11 different factors that help to explain why these people live in poverty, and different measures will be adopted for different people and different households to help lift them out of poverty," he said.
Penpa, a 48-year-old resident of Bayi township in Nyingchi, described himself as being "weak as a hen" after a long-term stomach ailment. He spends about 10,000 yuan on medical bills every year, and has a 70,000 yuan mortgage after building a new house in 2014 to replace the wood cabin he shared with his wife.
However, because he chose private clinics over public hospitals he has waived his right to claim medical insurance.
With the help of the authorities, Penpa and eight other villagers set up a cooperative to raise Tibetan chickens.
"We're desperately poor, but I definitely don't want to stay this way," he said.
In Tenzin's case, the local authorities have helped 11 poverty-stricken households in the village to establish a cooperative to raise pigs.
Tenzin said he could have made a much larger income if he had migrated to an urban area in search of employment opportunities. "But I have people to take care of. What if they got sick while I was absent?" he said.
Instead, he has been offered a job as a forest ranger, which will guarantee an annual income of about 3,000 yuan. He also has an occasional part-time job as a taxi driver for tourists bound for the Yarlung Zangbo River.
However, Tenzin said he still fears the worse-case scenario: That a relative will be hit by a serious illness and the medical bills will be beyond his means.
"I don't think anyone would lend me any money. It would be natural for them to doubt my ability to repay them," he said.
