Dedi village in Leizhou, a county-level city in Zhanjiang, has experienced great changes over the past four years with the help of Daliang sub-district, Shunde district in Foshan. In 2019, the annual per capita disposable income of the villagers reached 18,710.12 yuan.

Dedi village has eight natural villages under its jurisdiction, with 1,618 households and a total population of 7,198. Among them, 89 households with 372 people were registered as impoverished, making the village a provincial-level poverty-stricken village.

Daliang has been paired with Dedi village since 2016 to help the village's poverty alleviation efforts. It has invested a total of 11.69 million yuan ($1.76 million) into 44 projects that cover the fields of road construction, water conservancy, public service facilities, donations, skills training, the renovation of dilapidated houses, education, asset investment, and collective industrial projects.

Poverty alleviation through industrial development is a key emphasis in the village's poverty alleviation work.

By making use of funds provided by Daliang and its ecological resources, the village has set up specialized farming cooperatives for its impoverished residents, which take the operational mode of "base + impoverished households + cooperatives + companies" and has developed various projects, such as chicken, peppers, sugar cane, pineapples, and straw mushrooms.

A villager from Dedi village in Leizhou, a county-level city in Zhanjiang, works at the straw mushroom poverty alleviation workshop. [Photo by Li Jiabin/Zhanjiang Daily]

In addition, more than 600,000 yuan has been invested by Daliang to subsidize students from impoverished households studying in schools in Dedi village from 2016 to 2019. All the impoverished people in Dedi have taken part in the rural endowment insurance and the basic medical insurance programs.

By the end of 2019, all of the dilapidated houses in Dedi village have been renovated.

"Daliang not only helps us build a beautiful countryside, bus also assists the children from the impoverished families to go to school in the form of scholarships, grants, school supplies, and tuition fees," said Huang Yao, an impoverished person from Dedi village.

"My daughter was admitted to Shaoguan University this year. The governmental help has greatly reduced the pressure on family expenses, and we don't have to worry about her tuition fees," noted Huang, adding that his life has been increasingly hopeful.