Because They're Worth It

This episode of Life looks at a scheme which is helping poor people break out of the cycle of poverty and ignorance -- by providing them with small loans, basic health information, education...and hope.
In Wang San Ping village, near the Chinese border with Burma, in the southwest of Yunnan province, Yu Gui Hua and her friend Hu Zang Hua have used their loans from the scheme to build plastic greenhouses to grow vegetables all year round. They've repaid the first loans, and have even more ambitious plans for the second loan they're going to take out: this time, Yu Gui Hua has her sights set on a guest house, a car park -- even a restaurant.
But the micro-credit scheme, funded by UNICEF in China, does more than help women on to the first, vital step of the economic ladder. It also helps them gain friends, basic knowledge on how to improve their health -- and, crucially, self-esteem. As 83-year-old Ji Ki Ren Di, a woman from the Bai Yi caste in Mei Gu, a clan-based slave society until 1956, sums her situation up: 'I was born a slave and was forced to live in a grass shed....Now we live in a solid house. I don't think that I can live much longer, but I have lived long enough to see my family free. Now every day is a little better...'
'Gambling a few dollars in loans has helped China's rural poor hit the jackpot.' Timothy McGettigan, Professor of Sociology, University of Southern Colorado
Citation
Main credits
Liu, John D. (film producer)
Liu, John D. (film director)
Liu, John D. (screenwriter)
Gawin, Luke (film producer)
Richards, Jenny (film producer)
Lamb, Robert (editor of moving image work)
Masuta, Yumi (translator)
Clark, Avril (narrator)
Judd, Edward (on-screen participant)
Liang, Jong (on-screen participant)
Zhang, Ying Hua (on-screen participant)
Ng, Shui Meng (translator)
Ng, Shui Meng (on-screen participant)
Zhang, Fu (on-screen participant)
Other credits
Executive producer, Jenny Richards; series producer, Luke Gawin; series editor, Robert Lamb; translation, Ng Shui-Meng, Yumi Masuta.
Distributor subjects
Asian Studies
China
Developing World
Education
Geography
Global Issues
Globalization
Health
Human Rights
Humanities
Hunger
Population
Poverty
Social Justice
Sociology
United Nations
Women's Studies