Pocket Secretary Mo Huaizhao's village-stationed story
"Whether in bitter cold or scorching heat, he would carry his backpack through the village visiting every household. Besides a notebook and all kinds of technical materials, the bag also held daily necessities and blood pressure medicine. The villagers all called him the 'Pocket Secretary.'" Mo Huaizhao, retired Party branch secretary of Tianya Village, Yangba Town, Nanjiang County, Sichuan Province, told this writer with emotion.
The "Pocket Secretary" Mo Huaizhao spoke of is Tan Zhenli, the "First Secretary" of Tianya Village. He is a chief reporter at the Nanjiang County Radio and Television Station, and a son of farmers born and raised in the countryside. Tan Zhenli has published more than 2,000 articles of various kinds, including news reports, features and poetry, in a number of provincial and municipal media outlets, of which more than 60 works won first prizes at the provincial and municipal levels. He has successively won titles including Bazhong City "Famous Reporter," Nanjiang County "Outstanding Communist Party Member" and "Outstanding First Secretary." After being stationed in the village, Tan Zhenli thought and planned well in grasping poverty alleviation and carried things through to the end for the people, winning the trust and praise of the villagers. Tailoring measures to local conditions, seeking prosperity for the people
Tianya Village has high mountains and steep slopes, barren land and scattered homes; it is a typical high-cold mountain area, and the villagers' lives are extremely difficult. After taking up his post in the village, Tan Zhenli made himself "stay put and get moving." Through on-the-ground surveys, visits to old Party members, poor households and skilled growers and breeders, distribution of contact cards and face-to-face heart-to-heart talks with villagers, Tan Zhenli quickly gained a clear understanding of the village's conditions and the people's views.
On March 17, 2016, he organized village officials and 20 representatives of poor villagers to visit Bamiao, Gaota, Yanshan and other places to see industry, observe new villages and discuss development, so that everyone could learn from experience. "The on-site visits really struck a chord with me. I have decided to work with Secretary Tan to develop Tianya Village and help the villagers shake off poverty and become prosperous as soon as possible," said Yue Songlin, Party branch secretary of Tianya Village, full of confidence.
When hearts are united, Mount Tai can be moved. Members of the village "two committees" sprang into action, working overtime to plan the path for the whole village to escape poverty and develop. Various rules and regulations were quickly improved, village affairs and Party affairs were made public and operated transparently, and all matters in the village advanced in an orderly way.
Devoted to Tianya, good at delivering real results. Tan Zhenli saw the villagers' difficulties, felt anxious about them and turned that into action. He stayed in the village more than 20 days every month, eating, living and working alongside the villagers. He successively invited doctors from the county hospital of traditional Chinese medicine to the village to give the villagers free health checkups, and invited Huaxia Insurance Company to the village to provide all the villagers free personal accident insurance; he also invited county CPPCC members, private entrepreneurs and others to go deep into Tianya Village to jointly donate more than 60,000 yuan, giving poor households more than 3,000 chicks and building the Bolin Ecological Bashan Free-Range Chicken Farm. Poor household Lei Mingxuan said gratefully: "Thank you, Secretary Tan, for finding so many ways to help us. We will definitely do a good job in the industry and strive to escape poverty as soon as possible."
Tianya Village's former village road was full of pits and hollows. On sunny days you were covered in dust, on rainy days in mud, making travel extremely inconvenient. On September 7, 2015, Tan Zhenli organized a donation meeting for the village road, taking the lead with a donation of 500 yuan; that day a total of more than 70,000 yuan in cash was donated. On January 16, 2016, the task of hardening 5 km of concrete road surface was successfully completed.
?Truly serving the people, uniting hearts
"Secretary Tan led us to raise free-range chickens, yellow goats and local pigs, and also helped broaden sales channels. The villagers have more income and more confidence too," said Song Shigui, a villager from Group 2 of Tianya Village. Whenever he had free time, Tan Zhenli would go to the fields to check crop growth, and he also hired technical personnel to provide long-term follow-up guidance, offering ideas and advice to people facing difficulties in production and daily life.
In the precise identification of poor households, he led the village "two committees" team in holding villager appraisal meetings for 3 consecutive nights, letting the villagers decide for themselves. After open review, the results were posted publicly for confirmation, winning the support of the whole village. Seeing the plight of more than 10 villagers including Zhang Hui, Guo Shuli and Yue Liangwei, who are disabled, Tan Zhenli felt very distressed and took the initiative to contact the county disabled persons' federation to process disability certificates for them on the spot. "Secretary Tan wholeheartedly does real things for us. Knowing that it is inconvenient for us to get around, he took the initiative to get our disability certificates done," Zhang Hui and the others said, full of gratitude.
"As 'First Secretary,' I have both the duty and the responsibility to help the villagers escape poverty and become prosperous." Asked by this writer about the nickname "Pocket Secretary," Tan Zhenli said: "I only want to use my actions to handle real matters well and make good deeds truly effective. What exactly is in the pocket of my backpack is not important; what matters is helping the villagers' pockets bulge as soon as possible." Guo Hongyan