Young woman in China's Henan brings wealth to villagers

Zhang Guifang, a young woman in Sanjia village, Shilin township, Hebi city, central China's Henan Province, has brought prosperity to her fellow villagers after she returned to her hometown.

In December 2020, Zhang, who ran a B&B business in north China's Tianjin Municipality, answered the call to revitalize the place where she was born. She was then elected as Party chief and villagers' committee head of Sanjia village.

She soon found that the village was deep in debt and had no major industries. However, she decided to do something new to bring hope to the village.

Zhang then came up with the idea of painting the walls in Sanjia village to turn the village into a big "B&B hotel," which was questioned by many villagers.

She invited a painter born in the 1980s to draw beautiful pictures on the walls of houses in the village. She also led villagers to clear the trash and renovate houses and streets, making the village clean and tidy.

Zhang Guifang (1st from right) and villagers hold pumpkins in Sanjia village, Shilin township, Hebi city, central China's Henan Province. (Photo/Li Yang)

The village's beautiful wall paintings gradually attracted some visitors from urban areas. Zhang invited locally famous vloggers and reporters to the village to enhance its image.

On June 16, 2021, Sanjia village made its first appearance in newspapers as a village featuring colorful wall paintings. Shortly after, the village attracted the attention of more media outlets both from and beyond the province.

"Our village's fame increased significantly, becoming an internet-famous tourist attraction," Zhang said.

One month after the news report, a heavy rainstorm hit Hebi city, and the situation in Sanjia village was particularly serious, where farmlands, roads and houses were damaged, and electricity was cut off. Zhang held fast to her position to fight the floods and worked with a charity organization in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province to collect disaster relief materials worth 900,000 yuan ($123,850) for the village. Later, Zhang and her colleagues helped collect relief materials worth nearly 4 million yuan for the village and Shilin township.

After that, Zhang raised 240,000 yuan online for post-disaster reconstruction and secured a program to assist 50 households with elderly residents in the village.

After these efforts, Zhang was accepted and recognized as a capable leader, and was honored by the municipal government.

She has since secured 1 million yuan for drought and disaster mitigation, 800,000 yuan from the Hebi Charity Federation to construct roads, and 2.34 million yuan to build tap water pipelines in the village.

In early 2023, Zhang proposed creating a distinctive collective economy demonstration project for Sanjia village to higher authorities. The idea was to open an account on popular short-video platform Douyin to tell the village's stories and promote the local culture, customs, and daily life of villagers to attract investment. The project was approved and higher authorities gave a 500,000 yuan fund.

In March 2023, Zhang posted her first video on the account, sharing her story of returning to the village to serve as its leader and how she led villagers in improving the living environment, resolving debt problems, and developing industries. The account attracted 100,000 followers within 12 hours after the video was released. So far, the account has garnered over 460,000 followers, more than 150 million views and over 3.6 million likes.

Seizing on the opportunities presented by the popularity of the account, Zhang began to hold livestreams and sold over 15,000 kilograms of millet produced in the village via livestreams in a week. A new energy vehicle company established a cooperation agreement with Sanjia village, engaging in activities like donating agricultural machinery. The village also cooperated with a businessman to plant pumpkins, bringing over 300,000 yuan in income from jobs to villagers in the first year of cooperation.

Zhang was awarded the Henan Youth May Fourth Medal, the highest honor for outstanding young individuals in the province, in 2023 for her efforts to promote the rapid development of Sanjia village by leveraging the internet.