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From beggar to millionaire ... with a little help
Sitting in a new two-storey house worth VND200 million (US$11,400), Lai Thi Duyen, 45, cannot help shivering and feeling haunted when she remembers the hard times when she earned her living as a beggar - a job she describes as traditional in her village.
"I spent all my childhood walking in the streets trying to ask money from kind-hearted people in Ha Noi City. I was always hungry, thirsty and dirty all year round," said Duyen, a resident in Quang Thai Commune, Quang Xuong District in central Thanh Hoa Province.
"Because of poverty, my neighbours left the village to become beggars, so did other villagers, then my mother and I followed suit," she said.
Now Duyen and her husband have managed to build their own house and run a business thanks to the local authority’s support and soft loans from banks.
"Currently, there are 10 pigs weighing from 40-50kg each in my pigsty and 50 chickens in the garden. If I manage to sell them all with the price of VND40,000 ($2.3) a kilogramme, I will get more money for business development," Duyen said.
"If local authorities didn’t come and advise me to stop being a beggar with the support of VND500,000 ($28), I could not imagine how my life would be now."
Head of Quang Xuong’s Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs office Nguyen Van Khoan said consecutive storms in the 1960s damaged all paddies and fishing boats and forced residents in Quang Thai Commune to beg for a living.
Khoan said that many villagers rushed to big cities to beg on certain days as well as do other jobs, such as selling lottery tickets or working on building sites.
Tran Cong Tien is another case: Tired of street life, the former soldier decided to go back to his countryside and work as a fish sauce maker. After 14 years of hard work, Tien has become the best fish sauce maker in the district, providing full-time jobs for 20 villagers with monthly salaries of VND1.5-2 million ($86-$114) and part-time jobs for 70 others.
"My wife and I had to tell lies whenever my daughter asked about our jobs in the city. That made me so ashamed," Tien said.
"The early days were the hardest of my whole life as I could not find a job. I even thought about begging again when I saw my wife and children had nothing to eat."
Duyen and Tien are not the only cases in the commune. Many Quang Thai residents, once notorious for being beggars, are now trying to make a decent living in business.
Khoan said that after the Government invested money in vocational training to help affected people, most returned to the village and built their fortunes.
"Residents in the village no longer live by begging," Khoan said. "More than 1,200 among 1,788 households got out of poverty with an average per-capita income of VND6 million ($343) per year."
A Government project worth VND500-700 million ($28,600-$40,000) each year provides grants to districts to upgrade infrastructure and set up irrigation systems for agricultural development.
In Quang Thai, 29 houses have been built with the help of VND20 million ($1,143) each from the authorities for those who faced financial difficulties.
"More vocational centres and schools are under construction for those who want to earn money with their knowledge and skills. I hope more people will get out of poverty, get rich and the name of the beggars’ commune will fall into oblivion," Khoan said.
VietNamNet/Viet Nam News
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