Tra Vinh province enhances poverty reduction work

According to Director of the provincial Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Nguyen Van Ut, the province aims to cut the rate of poor households by 1.5 percent (equivalent to more than 4,000 households), including a reduction of 3 percent of impoverished Khmer ethnic families (or 2,683 households), and near poor households by 1.5 percent (or 4,137 households).

Agencies are enhancing communication work to raise public awareness of sustainable poverty alleviation, while local authorities are providing vocational training, teaching farming techniques to locals and generating jobs for poor and near poor people.

Ut said his department is working with the education sector to encourage disadvantaged children to go to school, prevent school drop-outs, as well as build vocational training courses for rural people, ensuring they all have jobs after graduating.

The department has worked with the Department of Construction and the Bank for Social Policies to build houses for poor households in the locality.

Additionally, it has coordinated with the provincial departments of Natural Resources and Environment and Agriculture and Rural Development to build a clean water supply system for rural families.

As of the end of 2018, Tra Vinh province had 16,414 poor households (nearly 6 percent of the total population), more than 10,000 of which are Khmer ethnic families.

Under two national programmes, one on rural development and the other on sustainable poverty reduction, the province has been allocated more than 124 billion VND (5.33 million USD) to build infrastructure in communes and districts, develop poverty alleviation models, branch out effective farming models for poor and near poor households, and help impoverished and ethnic labourers work overseas.