Women make camping stools in a workshop in Juancheng county, Shandong province. (Photo by Ju ChuanJiang/China Daily)
Local governments are providing jobs for impoverished rural residents by establishing a number of small businesses in villages.
The 300-square-meter building with the words "Targeted Poverty-Alleviation Workshop" emblazoned on the white, exterior walls stands in sharp contrast to the brick-built farmers' houses surrounding it.
Inside the building, in Xijie, a village in Juancheng county, Heze, Shandong province, dozens of farmers were sorting hair ready for distribution to wig manufacturers.
Sun Zhangcun was one of them. The 60-year-old's employment options are limited because his left leg was amputated after a traffic accident 17 years ago. Moreover, his wife has advanced rheumatism.
"We can't escape poverty: I'm disabled, so I can't leave the village for work, but I can't shoulder heavy farmwork either," he said, as he skillfully sorted a clump of hair.
In an attempt to solve his problems, Sun took a job at the workshop, which was founded last year by the local government to provide work for underemployed laborers. He earns about 1,000 yuan ($145) a month.
"Now I am useful to my family. I earn my own money, which gives me a sense of dignity," Sun said. Last year, he managed to save more than 3,000 yuan after covering daily necessities and medical expenses for him and his wife.
His workshop is one of 536 that have been established in villages across the county as part of a national campaign to lift farmers out of poverty.
Raising living standards
In 2015, Shandong recorded the third-highest GDP in the country, and the provincial government set the annual poverty level at 3,372 yuan per person.
Last year, 1.5 million people in the eastern, coastal province were lifted out of poverty, and the authorities aim to raise the living standards of a further 2.42 million by 2018.
By 2020, China plans to have eradicated poverty, as defined in 2011 by annual earnings of less than 2,300 yuan per person. On Sunday, at the two sessions, the government announced that it aims to lift a further 10 million rural people out of poverty by the end of this year.
To win the war against poverty, local governments have turned to specific sectors, such as e-commerce, finance, tourism development, relocation and infrastructure improvement.
The workshops in Juancheng provide jobs for the elderly, the disabled, women who need to take care of their parents and children, and others who are unable to leave the village for long periods.
At the end of 2015, Juancheng, located in the mudflats area of the Yellow River, was a designated national-level poverty-stricken county, with 89,600 of its population of 890,000 living below the subsistence line.
"Nearly one-in-10 was living in poverty, which put me under huge pressure," said Gu Ruiling, Party chief of Juancheng, who is responsible for poverty-alleviation in the county.
Gu didn't feel a sense of relief until last year, when a number of workshops had been built in villages across the county, providing an effective way of fighting poverty.
Inspiration
County officials conceived the "workshops model" in November 2015, when they conducted research into poverty-alleviation work in Daitang, a village in the county's Dongkou town.
"We saw several elderly women sorting hair in a shabby 10-square-meter shack made from plastic sheeting and simple wooden boards in a farmer's yard.
An 82-year-old woman told us she enjoyed working in the shack because she could earn hundreds of yuan a month. However, she had to stop working if it rained and the workshop was cold in winter," Gu said.
