A Khmer household in Vị Tân Commune in Hậu Giang Province’s Vị Thanh City breeds eels in cement pools. — VNA/VNS Photo Hồng Thái

HẬU GIANG — The lives of ethnic Khmer people in Hậu Giang Province have improved significantly because of the effective implementation of support programmes for them.

The Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta province has 31,601 ethnic minority people, who make up 4.3 per cent of its population, with the Khmer accounting for 23,470.

More than 85 per cent of Khmers make their living through farming, while the rest sell goods or work as hired labour.

The province has implemented programmes to provide farming and housing lands, clean water, and electricity for Khmers, in line with the national target programme for socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas for 2021-25.

It has also provided vocational skills to help Khmers improve their livelihoods.

These programmes have significantly improved the lives of the Khmer people, with up to 98 per cent of them now having stable lives, according to the provincial People’s Committee.

Some 97 per cent of communes with a significant Khmer population now have roads accessible by car, and 90 per cent of the Khmers have health insurance.

Over the past five years the province has repaired and upgraded several Khmer pagodas.

Moreover, it has constructed three crematories for the minority group.

Ký Hiếu Thanh, deputy head of the province's Ethnic Minority Affairs Committee, said that after five years of implementing policies for socio-economic development in ethnic minority areas, the appearance of rural areas where Khmers live has significantly improved.

He pointed out that infrastructure for socio-economic development continues to receive investment, and basic services are readily available for the Khmers.

The Khmer people have developed effective farming models such as chicken, cattle and eel breeding.

In Vị Thanh City’s Vị Tân Commune, Hamlet 7 has 113 Khmer households with 547 members. Many of them have been assisted through support programmes for house construction and provided soft loans to do agriculture.

Nguyễn Thành Lộc, secretary of the Hamlet 7 Party Cell, said while two years ago there had been over 80 poor households, that number has now reduced to just three.

Lý Kim Thiên in Hamlet 7 used to live in poverty but no longer after receiving assistance this year to build a new house and getting a loan to breed cows, oxen and eels.

He now earns VNĐ70 million (US$2,900) a year and plans to expand his eel farm.

The province has expanded 20 models aimed at helping poor households escape poverty. These assist them in goat breeding, forestry-aquatic farming, offering tourism services, and trading.

The number of poor ethnic households in the locality had decreased from 16.2 per cent in early 2022 to 13.1 per cent at the end. — VNS