Wen calls for further efforts to help the poor

Wu Jiayu, an 88-year-old farmer from Central China's Hunan province, never expected that Premier Wen Jiabao's work schedule would include sitting in his shabby house and asking him and his fellow villagers what the government can do to improve their livelihoods.

But over the last weekend, the unimaginable happened.

From May 25 to 27, Wen went to villages in the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture in Hunan province to study how poverty has affected local people's lives and how the government can pull them out of their economic plight.