Anti-poverty work makes life-changing progress on high

Editor's note: With China set to meet its goal this year of eliminating extreme poverty before next year's 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, this series looks at the efforts of different areas of the country to erase poverty and improve livelihoods.

Major investments in infrastructure, industry help lift Tibetan communities

Fresh water supply used to be a major concern for Tibetan villager Migmar.

She had to travel once every two days on a tractor for a 40-minute round trip on rough terrain to haul the precious resource home. Taking showers and doing laundry were a luxury for the community leader and her fellow villagers in Saga county in Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region.

Fast forward three years, Layak village, which is 180 kilometers away from Saga county in the southwestern part of Tibet, now have taps that readily provide potable water at the "top of the world".

"Our village had no proper roads or safe drinking water before 2016. But now, all the families have access to tap water and the village is connected by paved roads," said Migmar, 49, director of the village.

The roads and pipelines have helped lay the groundwork to improve the villagers' lives significantly, with their village, one of the latest places to benefit from the country's drive to alleviate poverty in recent years.

Measures to boost the income of villagers by helping their transition from traditional herding and farming have also reaped encouraging rewards, Migmar said.

"To make the shift, village officials organized a great deal of training for the residents to help them learn different skills such as cooking, welding and driving excavators and loaders. That has also helped villagers change their views on work and income."

Tibet has been one of China's main battlefields against poverty ever since the central government launched a nationwide effort in 2016 to improve the lives of the poor.