Ethnic minorities benefit from Gov't program
Ha Noi, June 24 (VNA)-- Special Government funding over the past three years has made almost all of the poorest 2,325 remote mountainous communities, home to a number of tribes, accessible to primary education and healthcare.
The move, widely known as Programme 135, has helped build 8,823 community projects for the target population, including 3,044 projects to upgrade the local traffic network, 1,674 irrigation projects and 2,502 educational projects. As well the project built local medical stations, and rural safe water and electricity supply facilities.
Investments for each of the target villages surged to 800 million VND (53,000 USD) on average last year, from 700 million VND in 1999. In total, the programme disbursed 2,198 trillion VND for those communities to upgrade their infrastructure facilities and boost production. As a result, an additional 250,000 tonnes of food were produced last year by the programme's target communities, making some provinces surpass the poverty line of 300 kg of food per capita a year.
The northern mountainous province of Lai Chau, for example, poured money into building irrigation projects and expanding rural roads and schools in remote areas, thus successfully establishing a sedentary life-style among thousands of families of H'mong, Ha Nhi and Kho Mu tribes in more than 500 spot communes in difficult areas. Lai Chau's Phong Tho district last year managed to change the slash-and-burn farming practices of almost 30,000 tribal families to a sedentary life, by allocating 35 percent of the programme budget for construction of 12 irrigation projects to ensure a stable water supply for 485 ha of crop fields, as well as education campaigns.
Ba To district of the central coastal province of Quang Nam, where 83 percent of the population are from the ethnic Hre minority group, has managed to build schools and medical stations, as well as automobile roads, and to install a telephone network for all of its villages. Some 70 percent of its villages have achieved universal primary education standards and managed to reduce the poverty rate to 11 percent in 2001, from 33 percent in 1998.--Enditem
