Chongqing- The online promotional campaign "Pastoral Aspirations" aimed at highlighting the achievements of rural revitalization across Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Shaanxi featured a visit to Yingxiongwan Village in Jiulongpo District as part of a four-day itinerary for media representatives in multiple districts and counties around Chongqing Municipality.

Yingxiongwan Village has become a model for rural revitalization in Jiulongpo that can now be shared across South Asia. (Photograph taken by James Alexander)

Yingxiongwan is located nearby Tongguanyi, a town with fine natural ecology and a forest coverage rate of 38%, which have earned the accolades of a "National Health Town" and "Famous Green Town of China." This picturesque corner of Jiulongpo District has unique location advantages and can be reached within an hour within the downtown area.

As a birthplace of the ancient Ba State, it was formerly one of three major water stations in Ba County during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The history and culture of Tongguanyi can be traced back to the Warring States Period more than 2,000 years ago. This area has since become a high-quality citrus base in China. Tongguanyi is commonly referred to as a "millennia-old ancient town and a century-old citrus town."

In recent years, Tongguanyi has closely focused on locational advantages, human resources, and pastoral ecology to vigorously promote the construction of a beautiful and modern village in Yingxiongwan, which has become a national demonstration village for rural governance, civilization, and tourism.

The fine ecology of Yingxiongwan Village has helped make this corner of Jiulongpo District a top attraction in rural tourism. (Photograph taken by James Alexander)

New college to share experiences with South Asia

Yingxiongwan Rural Revitalization College is a private non-enterprise approved by the Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau and has proactively organized 18 special training courses on rural revitalization, which has benefitted more than 1,700 people.

In the first phase, there are 18 classrooms and one auditorium accommodating 800 people. At the same time, other facilities include a reading room, sports equipment, and interactive areas for pastoral education, culture, and tourism.

The Yingxiongwan Rural Rivatalisation College has become an education base for Chongqing and China. (Photograph taken by James Alexander)

The college adopts an integrated teaching model that meets the development requirements of this new era, with a focus on practical teaching methods that combine immersive online and offline learning, inter-campus cooperation, and integrated research. Special courses such as innovation theory, rural reform, industrial development, and rural construction train rural inhabitants proficient in agriculture, modernization, and revitalization for Chongqing and China.

In the future, the Yingxiongwan Rural Revitalization College will share the experiences of poverty reduction through training and exchange to help South Asian countries develop their economies and people's livelihoods while jointly promoting the cause of poverty alleviation. This will also create an exportable model for rural revitalization in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative.

This attractively designed workshop in Yingxiongwan Village trains people in carpentry and dyed ramie cloth techniques for rural revitalization. (Photograph taken by James Alexander)

Created 550 employment opportunities

As a formerly remote and underprivileged corner in the Jiulongpo countryside, local authorities and residents in Yingxiongwan came together to implement a new model for economic reform dubbed "one heart, four departments, and six sources of income," which ultimately succeeded in bringing prosperity the villagers of Yingxiongwan.

To generate economic output from unused properties and increase rural incomes, Yingxiongwan established the "Rural Revitalisation Services Center" as the heart of this community-wide initiative, while the four departments referred to in this cooperative model are concerned with homes, land, credit, and consumer spending.

The Yingxiong (Hero) Culture and Education Base is one example of this new economic model, which attracted one million yuan in share investments and a similar amount in community-based support funding. In addition, 2600 mu of unused land and 35 empty properties were mobilized to construct this rural park, which has created 550 employment opportunities for residents, 20 teaching positions, and a further ten openings in business administration.

The Rural Revitalisation Services Centre has provided the economic model behind the success of Yingxiongwan Village. (Photograph taken by James Alexander)

Now that this economic model has succeeded, Deputy Director of the Jiulongpo Agricultural Commission Wu Xiaoping commented on how this reform is currently being implemented in many district areas. "The cooperative structure involved in the one heart four departments model can provide impetus in the cause of rural economic development," said Wu Xiaoping.

Wu added that 44 villages had implemented such reform pilots involving the mobilization of collective property rights, which has created a total of over 13,000 shareholders through this initiative.