A group of more than twenty people including eight cooperative directors of SSCLF’s Relay Baton Project of Farmers' Entrepreneurship and local government department leaders gathered at the old residence of the Soong’s family in Shanghai on April 15. Topics shared and discussed at the meeting are experience of choosing project households; how to integrate the project with cooperative development; how SSCLF can find suitable cooperatives and how SSCLF can design and implement projects better. These directors come from the cooperatives in Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou and Guangxi. Most of the cooperatives have finished the first phase of the three-year relay baton project and are about to or have started the second phase of the project, among them the project at Jintang town in Sichuan province has entered the fourth phase.

By organizing farmers return home to participate in relay baton projects, the living conditions of project households have been improved effectively and many cooperatives have become the landmark base for local governments to alleviate poverty in rural areas.

The meeting scene

Jintang township project phase iv cooperative director Chen Xiaohui giving his speech

A representative of the cooperative directors spoke at the meeting

Statement by a representative of local government department

The cooperatives’ directors are taking notes

A group photo