Liang Lidong (R), a secondary school student, teaches her mother to read Chinese characters in mandarin in the Wuying Miao Village, in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on April 8. [Xinhua/Huang Xiaobang]

Rural women in the Wuying Miao Village, Rongshui Miao Autonomous County, in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, now have chance to learn how to speak mandarin for better communicating with the outside thanks to the poverty alleviation work of teaching rural women and mothers to speak mandarin, which was sponsored by the local ethnic and religious affairs commission and the Women's Federation of Rongshui Miao Autonomous County.

Wuying Miao village is located in the mountainous areas where Guangxi borders Guizhou Province. It has 140 households with more than 600 villagers. Language barrier and poor communication was once one of the major causes of the village's poverty. 

Earlier this year, university, secondary school and secondary vocational school students who had returned to the village during winter vacation were recruited to join the one-year training session, teaching left-behind women, whose husbands have migrated to other areas for work, how to speak mandarin. The courses resumed recently with the preventive measures of novel coronavirus. 

The Wuying Miao village had 92 impoverished households in 2016. As the constantly advancing of the poverty alleviation work, great changes have happened in the village and 88 impoverished households have been lifted out of poverty.

Liang You (R), a student of a vocational school in Liuzhou City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, teaches her grandmother Liang Yingmi to speak mandarin at the mandarin training session in the Wuying Miao Village of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on March 3. [Xinhua/Huang Xiaobang]

Liang You (R) teaches her grandmother Liang Yingmi to speak mandarin by the fireplace in the Wuying Miao Village of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on April 3. [Xinhua/Huang Xiaobang]

Sophomore Liang Mengxiang gives a lesson at the mandarin training session  held in the Wuying Miao Village of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on April 8. [Xinhua/Huang Xiaobang]

Female students give one-on-one lesson to their mothers at the mandarin  training session in the Wuying Miao Village of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on March 3. [Xinhua/Huang Xiaobang]

Sophomore Liang Mengxiang (R) instructs two women how to speak mandarin at the mandarin training session in the Wuying Miao Village, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on April 8. [Xinhua/Huang Xiaobang]

Freshman Pan Muzhi (R) shows the letter of appointment for an instructor of the mandarin training session with her mother Liang Chunma in the Wuying Miao Village, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on April 1. [Xinhua/Huang Xiaobang]

(Source: Xinhua/Translated and edited by Women of China)