The road to prosperity for Nongbu, a disabled young Tibetan man: dreams remain whole
Nongbu led the disabled people of the whole village to develop ecological breeding, lifting up new hope for more than 20 disabled people in the village to become wealthy.
Through several years of effort, Nongbu's breeding base has continued to expand in scale.
Cangjue Village in Wujing Township, Shangri-La City is surrounded by green mountains and clear flowing water, with countless flocks of sheep dotted among the mountain forests and barren slopes, forming a breathtaking picture of a mountain village. Behind this beautiful scenery lies the arduous experience of a disabled young man's entrepreneurship.
Nongbu, a disabled young man in the village, led the disabled people of the whole village to develop ecological breeding, lifting up new hope for more than 20 disabled people in the village to become wealthy.
An unfortunate fate
Born in Jishika, Cangjue Village, Wujing Township, Nongbu had an unfortunate background and experience. His father had congenital polio in his right leg and had difficulty moving, so all the farm work at home fell entirely on his mother. Little Nongbu saw his mother's hard work and kept it in his heart. Sensible as he was, he began sharing the family's farm work prematurely after finishing only the second grade of primary school, working from dawn to dusk in arduous labor.
As the saying goes, the children of poor families take charge early. Rural life gave Nongbu a plain and hardworking disposition and tempered his strong will and character. For many years, unwilling to accept poverty and eager to escape it, he tried his hand at various businesses. Relying on his cleverness and quick wit, he bought large white beans and medicinal herbs and resold them to Kunming and other prefectures and cities. He moved with ease in the tide of the market economy, summed up rich experience, and also found the true meaning of life: being honest as a person and steadfast in doing things. Through hard work and effort, Nongbu gradually made his poor family more prosperous, and also saved up a considerable income, becoming a young man praised by everyone in the village and a role model for many young people there.
However, fate seemed to play a joke on him. Just when Nongbu's life had begun to improve and turn around, and when he was full of ambition and planning and envisioning his bright future, in 2011 a sudden car accident plunged him into an abyss.
That day, he woke up in a white environment. He gradually realized he was lying on a hospital bed, with his family all around him. When, through his family's tears, he learned that he had lost his right leg in the car accident and had undergone a high amputation, and would have to live with crutches for the rest of his life, he could hardly accept this unchangeable fact. A sense of loss and despair unlike anything he had ever felt surged through his whole body. He felt as if the sky had fallen and the earth had split, and the whole world had collapsed. For the first time he hugged himself and cried bitterly in despair, bringing everyone present to tears.
After returning from hospital treatment, Nongbu, who had usually been talkative, laughing, cheerful, generous, and full of sunshine and confidence, became silent. During the day he sat alone at the door of his home looking at the distant mountains without saying a word, and at night he lay in bed looking at the stars outside the window, tossing and turning, unable to sleep. His best years had only just begun - was he really going to lose his luster so early? Who would support his parents in their old age? What would become of his own life in the future? Nongbu thought about these questions over and over deep in his heart.
In order to rebuild Nongbu's faith in life, his family and friends tried every possible means to comfort and encourage him. Many friends told him stories of successful disabled entrepreneurs in our prefecture, such as Yang Jinkun and Xia Shanquan, and he was deeply moved by the strong will and never-giving-up faith in life of these disabled people. His family also bought him many storybooks about disabled people striving unceasingly, and all of this, like sunshine and rain moistening Nongbu's thirsty heart, subtly changed him. Nongbu truly felt the boundless love and expectations his relatives and friends gave him, became cheerful, and began to look forward to a beautiful future. Little by little, his confidence was ignited, and he decided to live by standing on his own two feet.
An arduous entrepreneurial journey
After finding confidence in life, Nongbu decided to be a person in society who strives unceasingly and stands on his own, and to be a useful person in society. He wanted to open up a new world of his own endeavors in the countryside.
The whole of Cangjue Village had about 20 disabled people, and these disabled households were very poor. He conceived the idea of leading the disabled people of the whole village to escape poverty and become wealthy through self-reliance.
Nongbu traveled to many places inside and outside the prefecture, carefully analyzing projects suitable for entrepreneurship. Through visits and summarization, and combining the geographical and climatic conditions of Cangjue Village, Nongbu discovered that breeding black goats was a good path with small investment risk, a short cycle, quick results, and especially the one most suitable for rural disabled people to start businesses.
So Nongbu called a meeting of the disabled people in the village. He told everyone the principle that a person may be disabled but the will is not, spoke of the dream of entrepreneurship, and explained the industrial investment plan. His sincerity ignited the passion of the disabled people who longed to escape poverty. Not one of them objected, and all expressed their willingness to follow Nongbu.
Entrepreneurship is hard, and for disabled people it is even harder. After choosing the industry project, the hardest problem was funding. Because after the car accident, his savings from many years were almost gone, and borrowing everywhere still failed to raise the needed funds. Nongbu went to many banks, but because he had no collateral, the banking departments were unwilling to lend. Just when Nongbu was at his wit's end, the disabled households in the village one after another brought out their own household registration booklets as collateral, and Nongbu successfully obtained the investment funds. This action by the disabled households moved Nongbu to tears. He felt the weight of this hard-won loan funding and became even more determined in his responsibility and confidence to lead everyone out of poverty.
With the funds, Nongbu first contracted several hundred mu of village land to plant forage grass and build pens. In those days, Nongbu, leaning on crutches, walked with difficulty around the base. He ate and lived at the construction site together with the workers, directing and planning the construction of the base, and invited relevant departments at the prefecture and county levels to provide comprehensive breeding technical training for the disabled people in the village. He also took the disabled people of the village to other prefectures to learn from experience. Through effective measures, he helped them truly master the techniques of breeding black goats and become experts in raising black goats. In the first year, Nongbu purchased more than 320 black goats and distributed them to three sites for raising. Thanks to proper management, 200 were ready for market by the end of the year, yielding a profit of more than 200,000 yuan, and the income of the disabled households in the village reached 16,000 yuan.
Under Nongbu's leadership, the disabled households in the village tasted the sweetness of entrepreneurship in the very first year, and Nongbu also had a considerable income. In 2013, he further expanded the breeding scale and established the "Wengbu Xuanjian Planting and Breeding Cooperative," actively pursuing a new model of "base + disabled people + market." In order to better lead disabled people out of poverty and to prosperity, Nongbu distributed all the cooperative's goats to the disabled people, taking 30% of the annual income himself while the disabled households took 70% of the annual profit. In this way, the income of the disabled households was greatly boosted, with the highest income of disabled households rising to 50,000 yuan, and the lowest annual income also reaching about 30,000 yuan.
A dream brought into reality
Hard work pays off. Through several years of effort, Nongbu's black goat breeding base has continued to expand in scale, and profits have accumulated in a "snowballing" fashion. In just a few short years, the "Wengbu Xuanjian Planting and Breeding Cooperative" has had more than 1,000 black goats, and Nongbu has also become a locally somewhat well-known specialized breeding household. The cooperative's annual number of goats sent to market reaches 500. This year Nongbu also signed a contract with a slaughterhouse in Lijiang for 500 goats per year. Order-based breeding has given the disabled people in the cooperative peace of mind and strengthened their confidence in breeding.