At the home of 84-year-old Ding Baojian in Shichang Village in Songxian County, Henan Province, a shining drinking water tap is shrouded by a plastic bag. He carefully opened the tap, got a glass of water and passed it to me, saying proudly, “Our tap water is drinkable, and very sweet.” Not long ago, however, all the households living in the village still solely depended on the rainwater collected in an open-air water cellar, with fallen tree leaves and waste often floating on the surface. In 2017, during his visit to the village, Liu Dashan, Party committee secretary and chairman of CECEP, required the poverty-relief staff to “solve the local drinking water problem at all costs.”

Hao Chengtao, temporary deputy governor of the county dispatched by CECEP, joined Hao Jiahua, Party chief of Shichang Village, in working hard for months until construction of a 630-meter-deep water well was completed on October 18, 2018. Amid the crowd witnessing the completion of the well, Ding was excited and touched to tears. “I had never tasted sweet water from deep well in my lifetime, nor did my ancestors living here,” he said. “Now I will be able to enjoy such convenience in my remaining years, which is made possible all thanks to CECEP, to County Governor Hao, and to Village Party Secretary Hao.”

“Drinking water difficulty remained a top concern for locals, and its settlement marks a breakthrough in poverty relief work in the village,” said Hao Jiahua. “The availability of deep-well water already exerted spillover effects: farmers who previously relocated elsewhere have moved back, young villagers who made a living as migrant workers have returned, and a variety of revitalization projects including tourist attractions improvement, planting and breeding bases construction and collective economic development have been accelerated.” 

CECEP invested more than 2 million yuan and dug a 630-meter-deep well in Shichang Village, which produces 40 tons of water per hour, putting an end to the village’s history of drinking water scarcity. 

After solving the drinking water problem, the Lattice Lighting affiliated to CECEP invested more than 80 million yuan in building a group of solar road lamps to illuminate 26 poverty-stricken mountain villages across the county. Meanwhile, CECEP has vigorously implemented the “Spring Seedling Support” aid program, presenting school kids books, computers and study supplies donated by the group’s subsidiaries across the country. After the national college entrance examination each July, CECEP donated a tuition fund of 500,000 yuan to Songxian County to help 100 impoverished students who passed the examination with excellent scores enter university, 5,000 yuan for each. So far, 600 students from Songxian have benefitted from the financial aid. 

Grade one and preschool children attend class together, reading aloud the textbook. Chai Xiaoxiao (right, front row) is a beneficiary of CECEP’s “Spring Seedling Support” aid program. 

Songxian County abounds in fine-quality traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) herbs. The health industry company of China New Era Group Corporation under CECEP takes advantage of local herbs to research and develop TCM products, aiming to better capitalize on local natural resources. 

In 2018, CECEP donated and installed 240 solar road lamps for eight villages in Songxian County, and the figures have increased to nearly 1,300 lamps and 16 villages so far. 

o solve the local environmental problems, China National Environmental Protection Group under CECEP undertook garbage treatment for 300,000 residents in Songxian County. It employs some 1,000 villagers from poverty-stricken households and trained them into skillful sanitary workers, which not only improved local environment but also ensured stable incomes for the villagers. 

Households in Shichang Village have been equipped with ecological toilets imported from Northern Europe, which can transform human excrement into eco-friendly fertilizer.