Community factories help lift Shaanxi villagers out of poverty

Benefiting relocated households

The first day Zhang Yundi began to work, she did not even know how to thread and had to learn how to use the sewing machine first. However, she did not expect to earn 50 yuan even though she produced nothing for the day.

A woman demonstrates sewing to a new worker in a community clothing factory in Pingli county, northwestern China's Shaanxi province, on July 26, 2018. [Photo/Xinhua]

She got familiar with the sewing machine in a few weeks and became a skilled worker in the factory. Taking out two pieces of fluffy white cloth, clamping them with a tweezer, and stitching them along jag edges, Zhang was able to sew up the teeth of a dinosaur toy in one go.

Zhang also processed a variety of other toy parts like grizzly bear tails and rooster wings. She said she could always find joy in this job every time there is a new assignment. 

After finishing a day's work at 4:30 p.m., Zhang would go pick up her kids and go back to their 100-square-meter apartment. "I didn't think we could live such a good life before," she said, "The better is yet to come."

According to the head of Zhang's village, its 129 poor households have all moved to new homes. Eighty-nine moved into Jinping community, and people from 11 households there are now working in community factories.

The village also embraced new development. The over-66-hectare arable land of the villagers were transferred to specialized cooperatives and pharmaceutical companies to plant tea, walnuts, and medicinal herbs, and people of the village took shares of the profit.

By last April, the county had established 83 community factories, providing more than 6,000 jobs with an average monthly salary of over 2,000 yuan per person. Drawing on Pingli's experience, the whole Shaanxi province built up 1,365 community factories in total, employing 51,200 workers, including 15,500 people in poverty.

With one member of a family working in a community factory, all members of the household could get rid of poverty, and this was how Pingli lifted its people out of poverty, said the head of Pingli's poverty alleviation and development authority.