Workshops a boon to 鈥榣eft behind鈥 villagers
Print Edition
At the retirement age of 63, Shi Cuiping has instead joined the workforce for the first time in her life 鈥 at a furniture workshop.
At her workplace, a few minutes鈥 walk from her home in rural Juancheng County, in east China鈥檚 Shandong Province, Shi weaves a rattan chair, one of many that will be shipped to cities around the world.
At the workshop, where she sits under a sign that reads 鈥淕etting rid of poverty and becoming better off,鈥 the sexagenarian is among the staff of about 60 people. Most of them are women, elderly, or disabled. They have been left to care for their grandchildren, whose parents have gone to big cities for better-paying jobs.
These 鈥渓eft behind鈥 rural residents are now able to earn a meager income thanks to thousands of the so-called 鈥減overty-relief workshops鈥 that have recently sprung up in villages.
Shi currently earns about 2,000 yuan (US$300) a month, much less than her son, a migrant worker who went south to Ningbo. However, she has the flexibility of leaving the workshop when she needs to, such as fetching her granddaughter from school and cooking a meal for her.
With vast areas of farmlands, the city of Heze, which administers Juancheng County, is known for its agriculture. Its lack of big companies or industrial bases has left the city relatively underdeveloped. Its impoverished residents make up more than half of Shandong鈥檚 population.
In the past two years, more than 2,800 workshops have opened with the help of the local government. They now employ 235,245 people, who had lived below the provincial annual per capita poverty line of 3,000 yuan.
Most workshop employees are engaged in work such as hair processing, toy making, and furniture manufacturing.
The workshops are all within walking distance of their employees鈥 homes, allowing them to do their daily chores and work in their spare time, according to Cai Weichao, who oversees poverty relief work in Heze City.
China aims to lift every Chinese out of poverty by 2020, when the country would achieve its move toward being a moderately prosperous society.
In the past five years, China has reduced the number of people living below the national poverty line of 2,300 yuan by 13 million on average each year.
However, it is the remaining 43 million Chinese 鈥 many of whom are disabled or elderly 鈥 who pose a tougher challenge to poverty-relief officials.
The poverty-relief workshops not only create jobs for those left behind in rural areas, but they also boost local industries and increase tax revenue for the community. In Juancheng, many local enterprises hang recruitment signs on their office walls.
Fan Jifu, manager of a hair-processing company, said the rural workshops had helped to ease labor shortages and saved the company about 20 percent in labor costs. It collects semi-processed hair products from six rural workshops, where women and seniors are paid between 1,000 and 2,000 yuan a month for simple work such as sorting hair.
Such job opportunities are drawing some migrant workers home. The returnees are using their experience gained from working in cities to manage the workshops.
One of them is Wang Changyuan, who has returned to Juancheng. He now manages more than 30 workers, 18 of whom had lived below the poverty line.
After working as an apprentice in clothing factories in Beijing and Qingdao, Wang decided to return home last year after a local official called and told him about an opportunity to manage his own factory.
He named his company 鈥淶hongfa,鈥 which means 鈥済et rich together鈥 in Mandarin. Having endured poverty and disability when he was young, Wang hopes that no one in his workshop will experience what he went through.
鈥淚 hope I can earn enough money to buy them some extra meat in winter and ice creams in the summer,鈥 Wang said.
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