Relocation campaign helps fight poverty in hinterland

Twenty-five years after Yang Guifang's family moved out of their native village in Guyuan, Ningxia Hui autonomous region, the sight of what she used to call home stunned her. The rolling hills and barren land have long been appraised by the United Nations as being unfit for human habitation.

"At the time, my father was the only breadwinner in our family, and my grandparents and mother would have loved to contribute, but couldn't due to health reasons. Taking his children out of the mountains was the only hope for him at the time," said the 36-year-old lawyer based in Yinchuan, the region's capital.

Yang's family was among 350,000 poor villagers whose lives, along with their children's, have been changed by a massive relocation project in 1993 that aimed to resettle impoverished villagers from southern Ningxia to places that could support sustainable development and provide job opportunities.