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Because They're Worth It
Internationally, the definition for absolute poverty is living on an income of under a dollar a day. But the Chinese Government has a lower threshold for poverty: 66 US cents a day. Out of a total Chinese population of 1.3 billion, there are 42 million Chinese who are poor by this definition. This episode of Life looks at a scheme which is helping poor people, especially women, break out of the cycle of poverty and ignorance - by providing them with small loans, basic health information and education. As described in an earlier programme in this series on micro-credit in Bangladesh, Credit Where Credit's Due, these small loans bring many benefits to family life - and virtually all of them are repaid.
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Wang San Ping village, near the Chinese border with Burma (Myanmar), in the south west of Yunnan province, has been settled in the last seven years by people from the villages lower down the valleys who have run out of land to feed their growing populations. Until two years ago, the whole area around Wang San Ping was bustling with timber workers working in the dense surrounding forests. The timber workers were keen to buy village produce - so the local women had no difficulty in finding a market for their meat and vegetables. But in the wake of the devastating 1998 floods, the Chinese Government passed strict new forestry laws. The mills in Lijiang were closed down, the loggers sent home. For China, and for the global environment, it was a much needed move. But for the farmers of Wang San Ping it meant their major source of income had suddenly been taken away.
Then the micro-credit scheme started, and the women could receive loans of 1,000 yuan (about US$ 125). As long as they pay the first loan back, they're eligible for two further loans. Yu Gui Hua and her friend Hu Zang Hua have used their loans from the scheme to build plastic greenhouses to grow vegetables all year round. They've repaid the first loans, and have even more ambitious plans for the second loan they're going to take out: this time: Yu Gui Hua has her sights set on a guest house, a car park - even a restaurant. But the micro-credit scheme, funded by Unicef in China, does more than help women on to the first, vital step of the economic ladder. It also helps them gain friends, basic knowledge on how to improve their health and, crucially, self-esteem.
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Many women in the project have now installed sanitary toilets in their homes. This reduces the risk of disease, improving their and their families' health, and making them the envy of their neighbours. For some villages, the next step is to combine the waste with pig manure to produce biogas for cooking and lighting.
In another poor village in Sichuan Province, the menfolk spend much of the year absent, looking for work. Wang Zheng Cun took out a loan to help her pig business, which was soon flourishing. "Before when we didn't get together so much, we didn't know what others were doing. Now that we have the large group meetings we know what every one is doing. And if someone needs help we make time to go help them."
A third of the interest the women pay on their loans is put into a Social Development Fund which the women themselves administer. They use the money to pay for the most urgent needs in the community. At a meeting, the women agree to give 80 yuan to poor families to help their children go to school.
The women also receive training in various subjects, provided by experts. In Gansu, and many other areas, there's a special need for education about micro-nutrients. Much of China's long farmed land lacks vital minerals like iodine. Without supplements, the entire population of affected regions is at risk of iodine deficiency. Here, women are taught that iodized salt is the best way to ensure they get enough iodine in their diet.
Unicef believes that women's social position in the family improves through participation in the micro-credit scheme: "Women not only earn money but they also are able to take better care of themselves, of the members of their family and more so of their children," says UNICEF Programme Officer Ng Shui Meng.
Mei Gu County in Gansu Province is one of the most remote places in China, and still maintained a clan-based, slave society until 1956. Education and hygiene levels still lag way behind more developed Chinese regions. In this culture women, were traditionally subservient to men. Now the project is helping these women and their communities overcome centuries of discrimination.
As 83-year old Ji Ki Ren Di, a woman from the Bai Yi caste in Mei Gu, sums her situation up: "I was born a slave and was forced to live in a grass shed. Now we live in a solid house. I don't think that I can live much longer, but I have lived long enough to see my family free. Now every day is a little better."
Her grandson's wife, E Zhu Jin Zi, is a member of the micro-credit Programme. She used her loan to buy pigs to raise - she now has four sows and thirty piglets. She's already repaid her initial loan, and taken out another. As her confidence grew, she started up a small restaurant business opening three days a month to feed the crowds that flock into the township on market days.
By December 1999, over 42,500 women were taking part in China's SPPA programme - and 90 per cent of them had repaid the loans. As Edwin Judd of Unicef puts it: "Women in rural areas from poor families who desire to succeed and are given the chance to acquire the knowledge and skills are a great source of human investment. It seems to me that financial institutions, if only looking at the situation from their own interest, would want to have such responsible customers."
TRANSCRIPT
Read the full transcript of Because They're Worth It
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