60-year-old Le Van Van (in photo), 39 years participating in revolution, 26 years attaching to ethnic affairs, is a cadre of Provincial People’s Committee Office and is an enthusiast for ethnic affairs.
Formerly, he was a forestry staff. In 1990, Song Be Forestry Department and Department of Agriculture was merged into Department of Agriculture - Forestry – Fishery; and he was assigned with ethnic affairs at Branch of Migration, Settled Agriculture and Settlement. He faced many difficulties then but thanks to his keen intelligence and sharing difficulties with ethnic community, he determined to study and do researches to quickly grasp his work.
He recalled that, at the time, Song Be province was a poor province as other provinces; the transport infrastructure was underdeveloped; living standards of ethnic minority people was low; especially malaria in remote areas was always the obsession of everyone. These were big challenges for the staffs working in affairs of migration, settled agriculture, and settlement as Mr. Van.
He retold in 1995, in the process of implementing settled agriculture and settlement for ethnic minority people in Bu Dang district, Song Be province (now Binh Phuoc province), he was suffering from malaria, but thanks to attention and dedicated treatment of the medical workers, he overcame the time of more dead than alive. Thus, he was willing to devote his life to ethnic affairs and for the prosperity of ethnic minority people.
Despite such difficulties and dangers, he and his colleagues have overcome all to build works and projects for development of ethnic regions. Dozens of projects bearing his stamp such as Cultural Center Clusters of An Binh -Phuoc Vinh - Vinh Hoa and Tan Hiep - An Linh - Phuoc Sang in Phu Giao district, the project of settled agriculture and settlement in Dakia commune, Phuoc Long district, Song Be province (now Binh Phuoc province), etc.
In 2005, Binh Duong merged ethnic affairs division of Branch of Migration, Settled Agriculture and Settlement and Religious Committee into Religious and Ethnic Committee. After that, Religious and Ethnic Committee had been split into Religious Committee under Department of Home Affairs and Division of Ethnic Affairs under Provincial People’s Committee Office. Even so, his work was still unchanged. Until now, he has still paid attention to lives of ethnic minority people.
As ethnic minority households in Binh Duong province have not been concentrated on an area, causing big obstacles for ethnic affairs, including building and disseminating ethnic policies. To get special ethnic policies for Binh Duong provincial ethnic minority people, he and his colleagues have researched and learnt about ethnic minority aspiration to build provincial policies in accordance with lives of ethnic minority people and to improve their life. Many policies consisting Policy for reputable person, legal dissemination, agricultural promotion, etc. were well implemented.
With 26 years working in ethnic affairs, up to date, his happiest time is that no poor ethnic minority households in Binh Duong province exists under central criteria; the whole province had only 56 out of 6,000 poor households in the province according to provincial criteria. Knowing that, this result was enormous effort of the political system, staff and people in the province, but his merits are undeniable.
Commenting on Mr. Van’s work, Le Dinh Ngoc, the former Head of the provincial Division of Ethnic Affairs, said that few people would be so enthusiastic about ethnic affairs as Mr. Van. He has made all his efforts and worked with all mind to bring prosperous life for ethnic community.
Up to date, time of his retirement mode is only several months, but according to him, he will continue to contribute to the ethnic affairs in Binh Duong for well-off life of ethnic community in integration process.
By the spirit of servicing the nation and the people under President Ho Chi Minh, his contributions are worthy of respect and recognition. May good health be with him so that he can continue to ethnic works for the cause of the ethnic affairs.
Reported by Thanh Phong – Translated by T.H
