China Focus: Training Xinjiang's rural people for better lives

For the last seven months, Rabiya Yusan has been seconded to Kazakla Village, in Kashgar prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where she is helping villagers find new sources of income.

Yusan's permanent home is in the region's capital Urumqi. As one of many officials dispatched to the region's rural areas, Yusan, 54, deputy director of the region's agricultural department, now labors from dawn till dusk every day to come up with new ways for farmers to make more money.

China has worked hard to develop Xinjiang since the autonomous region was founded on Oct. 1, 1955. A three-year program that began in March 2014 is sending 200,000 cadres from regional government departments, public institutions and state-owned enterprises to live and work for a year in 12,000 villages, state farms and communities.

With a population of 1,763, Kazakla had a per-capita annual income of just 8,024 yuan (1,259 U.S. dollars) in 2014, lower than the Xinjiang average of 8,296 yuan and much lower than the national rural average of 10,489 yuan. Helping farmers improve their living standards is crucial for the region's social stability.

"Some young men do not know much about Islam, nor have they read the Quran, but they pursue their immediate interests and join terrorist groups. That's a painful problem," Yusan said.

"Wealth comes through hard work," she said. "We must help them find jobs or ways to make money by themselves."

ESCAPING THE YARDS

China has a target of building a comprehensively well-off society by 2020. Reaching that goal is exactly what concerns Yusan and her six colleagues. They have helped set up three cooperatives in Kazakla.

At Qiaoniang Handicrafts Cooperative, Uygur women operate lines of sewing machines, making bags from Atlas silk, a unique local textile with startling colors and beautiful patterns. They are working to complete an order worth 30,000 yuan.

"It is difficult to bring Uygur women together and train them in complicated tasks," said Yusan. Southern Xinjiang is an intensely Uygur area where men have the final say in family matters.

In the beginning, some men refused to allow their wives to work, believing that women were good for nothing except looking after babies, housework and cooking family meals.

Yusan and her colleagues visited villagers in their own homes and persuaded the conservative husbands to give their wives a chance to make money by themselves. Yusan also invited arts and crafts master Shan Xiumei to train the women.

Turnisagul, director of the Qiaoniang cooperative, was sent to the more developed northern part of Xinjiang to learn from other villagers involved in similar operations.

"The most difficult thing was management. We had to teach them good habits such as punctuality and personal hygiene, otherwise the cooperatives would not function at all," she said.

Yusan is proud to have helped the women overcome their difficulties, escape their yards and become qualified craftswomen. Although the cooperative has been open for less than a month, their bags are already popular in markets across the country and they have plenty of orders.

SMALL SUCCESS, BIG WORRIES

To date, more than 100 women in the town have been trained and applied to join the cooperative. Last week, when Yusan gave them each 1,600 yuan in cash -- the first wages in their entire lives -- their eyes brimmed with tears.

Despite these small successes, Yusan is worried. She has found that all over rural Xinjiang, village officials are normally old, uneducated and lacking innovative ideas. "After we finish our one-year mission here, they will be without competent people to lead them," she said.

The solution, Yusan says, is to cultivate ambitious and smart young people to take on more community responsibilities.

Xeergul Bek, 40, sews a bag intently while her one-year-old daughter sleeps on the table in front of her. After taking a job in the cooperative beside her home, Bek became more confident and she has made up her mind to send her daughter to college.

"These women have changed very quickly. They enjoy the cultural and sports activities we organize, and they won't be late for a meeting now," Yusan said. Endi