Guizhou helps 488,000 disabled people shake off poverty

During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), Southwest China's Guizhou province has strived to educate disabled people, offer them jobs and help them increase their incomes.

So far, all of the province's 488,000 impoverished disabled people have shaken off poverty.

Since 2016, Guizhou has supported 3,378 disabled children and 3,087 disabled freshmen to stay in school. Also, the province's first secondary vocational and technical school for special education has been set up.

According to the needs of disabled people, Guizhou offers skill training programs covering e-commerce, cooking, massage treatments, drink making, planting and animal breeding. By June this year, 61,188 disabled people had been trained.

Guizhou has established a monitoring platform to compare and share data from eight government departments, helping authorities supervise poverty alleviation progress among disabled people.

So far, 399,900 disabled people have been offered subsistence allowances, 344,000 low-income disabled people enjoy a living subsidy, and 367,000 severely disabled people have nursing care allowances. Also, 1.28 million disabled people have joined the basic medical insurance program, and 1.16 million disabled people joined the basic old-age insurance scheme.

In addition, Guizhou has supported 17,300 disabled people or families to start businesses. In total, 312,500 disabled people have been successfully employed or started their own businesses.

The province has also explored using poverty alleviation funds to help impoverished people who are severely disabled to buy shares from economic entities.

Guizhou has currently invested over 60 million yuan ($9.19 million) in 349 impoverished villages and helped 11,700 severely disabled people receive a payment of 600 yuan per person per year.