A boarding room for ethnic students at the Châu Thành District Ethnic Boarding High School in Sóc Trăng Province. — VNA/VNS Photo Tuấn Phi

SÓC TRĂNG — The lives of ethnic people in Sóc Trăng have improved significantly since the province began implementing a national target programme for socio-economic development two years ago.

Ethnic people make up 31 per cent of the Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta province’s population, with the Khmer alone accounting for 28 per cent.

The province has invested VNĐ161 billion (US$6.6 million) to build infrastructure in ethnic areas under the programme.

It has built roads, bridges, community houses, markets, water supply systems, and ethnic boarding schools, and created jobs for ethnic people in localities such as Trần Đề, Châu Thành and Mỹ Tú districts and Vĩnh Châu Town that have large numbers of them.

Lý Rotha, head of the provincial Ethnic Minority Affairs Committee, said VNĐ45.6 billion ($1.9 million) has been earmarked since 2021 to assist 4,560 ethnic families switch jobs to improve incomes.

They have improved their incomes and left behind poverty for good, he claimed.

Trương Hán Nghiệp, head of the Châu Thành District Ethnic Minority Affairs Bureau, said 50 per cent of the local population is Khmer of whom 946 households are below the poverty line.

This year, 228 of the households have been provided with financial support to switch to livelihoods that offer better incomes, he said.

District authorities also handed over free water containers to 78 households besides housing lands to seven and houses to 111, he said.

Sơn Thị Phên, an ethnic woman in the district’s Thuận Hoà Commune who used to work as a daily labourer, was given money to buy a sugarcane juice making machine this year.

She now earns a larger income by selling juice, enough to finance her children's studies, she said.

Besides creating jobs for ethnic people, the province has also provided housing lands to 338 households, houses to 1,899 others and clean water to 1,223 since 2021.

Lâm Văn Mẫn, secretary of the provincial Party Committee, said the number of poor households has been reduced from 22,409 in 2021 to around 8,480 now for a 2.54 per cent rate.

Poverty rate among the Khmer has reduced by 3-4 percentage points a year in 2021-23, he said.

Local socio-political organisations have implemented a number of measures to help ethnic households improve their incomes and escape poverty.

The provincial Women’s Union has developed co-operatives and co-operative groups to help women in all sectors, helped ethnic women get loans and taught them vocational skills. — VNS