Chengde Community Development and Poverty Alleviation Project
Location: Chengde City, Hebei Province
No. of Recipients households: 140
No. of animals given: 280 beef
No. of pass-on families: 140
Chengde Municipality is located in the northeastern part of Hebei Province. It comprises 39,500 km2there has a population of 3,610,000, of which 2,740,000 are farmers. Of the 8 counties and 3 districts under its jurisdiction, 7 counties are still on the list of state-level or province-level low-income villages. In 2005, the annual average income per farmer was under RMB1,000 (USD125) in these villages.
The two villages have plenty of space and feed resources for animal production, and the villagers are eager to use these resources to increase their income by setting up their own mini animal production farms. One or two animal health workers will be selected in each community from recipients who are comparatively experienced in cattle raising and enthusiastic in providing technical services to other farmers. Additionally, the Chengde government has planned to subsidize the two villages to improve their infrastructure by building roads to Gen Cai Gou Village and helping the villagers to construct biogas-generating pits so as to improve the farmers’ living conditions. With the improvement of village roads and living conditions, and training on group development and management, the communities will be able to hold more group activities, such as passing on the gift ceremonies, group meetings, trainings, etc. The villagers are usually less involved in decision making. The project will bring participatory management into the village and will train both the village heads and the villagers. More people will be active and concerned in the development of their community. The original inputs from Heifer and the training in community capacity building and in animal production and management among the villagers will allow the recipient families to double their annual average income and become better off within 3 years; within five years the whole village can shake off its poverty burden and take on a new look.
