Comprehensive growth

To help scale up from the agricultural inroads made by residents like Tan Meichun, Huanjiang authorities are rolling out high-tech industrial areas to tap cooperation with leading enterprises, integrating research and development, production, sales and services projects, providing more than 5,000 jobs for relocated residents. More than 100 skills workshops have supported hiring for relocated residents numbering over 2,600, according to latest figures.

The local government continues to place priority on improved housing for residents under its comprehensive development road map. During the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period, at least nine major relocation sites for poverty alleviation involved nearly 18,000 residents of more than 4,300 households, accounting for about one-quarter of impoverished communities.

In terms of medical care, investments include more standardized facilities to improve village clinic networks and physician follow-up services to further improve healthcare security for poverty-hit and relocated households.

More than 80 million yuan has also been invested in Huanjiang's early education sector, with the coverage rate of inclusive kindergartens hitting over 90 percent and the enrollment rate of preschool education at 95.3 percent. In line with plans to boost the educational sector and ensure zero dropout rates, advanced facilities and educational services are rolling out at relocated communities.

Building and preserving the cultural sphere is also an important element of Huanjiang's development path for the ethnic community, with at least 27 teams and groups set up to promote and practice literary and artistic training courses, as well as local drama and folk, song and dance performances.

Xianan resident Tan Jianxin, 68, is one of the few remaining master craftsmen of traditional Maonan Nuo dance masks used in ethnic rituals and celebrations. He runs government-supported craftsmanship workshops, numbering about 20 participants each, for poverty-hit villagers. Tan takes about a week to create a handmade wooden face mask, which can fetch about 800 yuan. The larger versions, more than a meter high, each take him about one month to make and are bought by museums and serious collectors for about 8,000 yuan apiece.

"I'm a sixth-generation mask maker and I've been doing this my whole life. The anti-poverty development focus has turned this into a viable profession. You can make up to 60,000 yuan a year," said Tan, who has four main apprentices, including his 36-year-old son, aside from the poverty-hit residents who sign up for his workshops. The work is not easy, Tan said, with the eyes, nose and mouth the hardest features of the mask to carve.

"You have to start over again if you don't do it well. But it's a chance to preserve our heritage and learn an important, lifelong skill for making a living at the same time," he said.

"It's worth it, once you commit to it."