Promoting the role of veterans in building new rural areas

Veterans Association of Xuan Truong district develop traditional bronze casting craft.

Promoting the qualities of "Uncle Ho's soldiers" in building advanced and exemplary new rural areas, the Nam Truc District War Veterans Association has actively directed and mobilized exemplary cadres and members to take the lead in implementing the criteria on income, housing, and environment; mobilized people to renovate their houses, donate money and working days to build welfare works, build village roads, internal irrigation, build village cultural houses, plant and care for flower and tree roads for war veterans. In particular, implementing the model of "Planting, caring for and protecting war veterans' trees", the District War Veterans Association has promoted propaganda to all levels of the grassroots associations; oriented the associations on sustainable types of trees and flowers as well as planting and care methods; regularly checked and urged the progress of tree planting; mobilized cadres and members to contribute funds to implement the model. The Association of War Veterans at all levels in the district also proactively developed plans, conducted field surveys, proposed to local Party committees and authorities and registered the number of rows of war veteran trees to be planted. Thereby, communes and towns selected trees and flowers with beautiful colors, suitable for local soil conditions to plant such as: color-changing leaf trees, pearl necklace, deer eye, purple afternoon, sam flower, dracontomelon, areca, casuarina, pine, royal poinciana, camphor, sanh, si... After forming the "row of war veteran trees", the Association of War Veterans at all levels assigned the branches to manage, weed, fertilize, prune... Up to now, 100% of the Association of War Veterans in communes and towns have a model of "row of war veteran trees" with dozens of different types of trees and flowers. Some Association bases have many beautiful rows of war veteran trees such as: Nam Tien, Binh Minh, Nam Hung, Nam Thanh...

With the goal of "Each Association has at least one project or work undertaken by war veterans, and each war veteran member has practical work to effectively implement the criteria for building a new rural area", the War Veterans Association at all levels in the province has actively coordinated with sectors and organizations to promote propaganda work, raising awareness of cadres and members about the meaning and purpose of the New Rural Area Construction Program. At the same time, it has proposed a specific, appropriate and practical program of activities close to the actual situation of the localities. In order for the program to be effective, the provincial War Veterans Association has launched the emulation movement "War veterans set good examples and actively implement the New Rural Area Construction Program". The Associations at all levels have also registered to undertake many "difficult" tasks in the criteria for building a new rural area. Typically, in implementing environmental criteria, the Association of War Veterans at all levels has participated in mobilizing members and people to collect waste in rural areas, move livestock barns away from residential areas, build waste treatment pits, coordinate with environmental sanitation organizations, plant trees, etc. Up to now, the whole province has maintained 1,114 "War Veterans participating in environmental protection" groups, attracting more than 4,300 members; 100% of war veteran families have standard bathrooms and toilets. In terms of security and order, the provincial Association of War Veterans has directed grassroots associations to establish and maintain "Reconciliation Groups", "News Groups", "Traffic Safety Groups", "War Veterans for the People Groups"... The above groups have coordinated with local authorities and the police force to propagate and raise awareness among members about the law, self-defense awareness, and maintaining security in residential areas; Regularly patrol, detect and promptly prevent bad elements from other places from entering the area, protecting the peace of residential areas. Currently, the whole Association has built and maintained 1,720 "War Veterans' Groups for the People", 1,377 "Security and Order Protection Groups", "News Gathering Groups", 1,645 "Reconciliation Groups", 1,405 "Traffic Safety Groups", 24 "Fire Prevention and Fighting Groups". With the motto "War Veterans set good examples, contribute ideas, contribute to building new rural areas", up to now, cadres and members of the War Veterans' Association in the whole province have donated 4,619m2 of cultivated and residential land, 4,750m2 of agricultural land to build rural infrastructure; supported and mobilized their children and grandchildren to support over 2.9 billion VND in cash, 19,950 days of voluntary labor to build and upgrade public works; built 36.2km of rural roads, 25.7km of intra-field roads; planted 45,613 trees of all kinds...

In order to improve the lives of members and contribute to the implementation of income criteria in building a model new rural area, the Association of War Veterans at all levels also promotes the emulation movement "War Veterans help each other develop the economy". Accordingly, the Association at all levels regularly reviews the living conditions of members, especially members in difficult circumstances, to develop plans to help and support; build criteria for striving to do good business in each grassroots unit, branch and member's family. Every year, the Association at all levels coordinates with functional units to open training courses on agricultural extension, training to improve knowledge on economic development; guide members to bring plants and breeds with high productivity and economic value into production and breeding; Organize for members to visit typical economic models and organize conferences to evaluate and learn from experiences in replicating advanced models and examples... Thereby, promoting the emulation movement to help each other develop the economy, arousing comradeship, solidarity and the will to overcome difficulties and rise up in members. In addition, the Association at all levels also widely propagates the Party's guidelines and policies, the State's policies and laws on preferential credit policies for poor households and policy beneficiaries, credit programs for students to cadres and members managed by war veterans; actively participates with the government and organizations to review poor households and policy beneficiaries who are eligible to borrow capital from banking channels and credit institutions; coordinates with banks to strengthen the inspection and supervision of loan sources at the grassroots level, urging borrowers to use loans for the right purposes. Therefore, the quality of loan sources is always guaranteed, with no overdue debt. The Association at all levels has received over 650 billion VND in trust to help tens of thousands of members borrow capital. In addition, cadres and members have also contributed billions of VND through the "Comradely Love" Fund to lend each other interest-free or low-interest loans to develop production and business. From the loan capital, up to now, many members have boldly invested in establishing 267 small and medium-sized enterprises, 42 cooperatives, 50 cooperative groups, 133 farms, 2,134 family farms, 1,688 service business households... owned by war veterans; of which 13 war veterans' enterprises have revenue of over 50 billion VND/year, 14 cooperatives have revenue of over 10 billion VND/year.

With the active work in building new rural areas of the Veterans Association at all levels, it has contributed to raising awareness among cadres, members and people about consciousness, responsibility, promoting the internal strength of the community in participating in implementing the National Target Program on building new rural areas, promoting socio-economic development in the province.

Article and photos: Hoa Quyen

Source: https://baonamdinh.vn/kinh-te/202504/phat-huyvai-tro-cua-cuu-chien-binhtrong-xay-dung-nong-thon-moi-9dd646f/