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A Vibrant Village


What is a vibrant village? What does it take to create one? Can a village vibrancy prevent and curb rural-urban migration?

A village is vibrant when it has happy and content people. A village is vibrant where content people help each other. A vibrant village is where everyone is involved in or concerned with building a strong community. Such a village is connected with a well-maintained road that provides farmers with access to the outside world. 

A vibrant village grows its food and has no need to import anything from outside. Such a village booms with economic activities and here farmers look beyond subsistence farming. That is not to inject greed; it is rather, to encourage hard-working people to work harder. These farmers have at their service useful and modern farming tools to ease their work on the farms. In a vibrant village, farmers have the right to harvest their crops without having to share them with wild animals. 

A vibrant village has adequate and modern day facilities. Electric or solar fencing is one important feature of a vibrant village and keeps wild animals away from the human activities. It reaps the benefits of the country’s financial institutions and triggers entrepreneurial skills. Such a village boasts of hard working people. 

May our villages pick up some threads of a vibrant village and retain people on the farms. May today’s gungtong (empty households) start refilling with people tomorrow and let the walls echo with familiar laughter once again. 
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  1. Yeshey DorjiDecember 31, 2016 at 9:14 AM

    An article with feeling. Recently His Majesty delivered a powerful National Day Speech in Trongsa that speaks of things you mention. I have written 10 articles in the Kuensel on the issue. Guntong is a serious issue with multiplier effect - on the one hand it causes fall in agriculture production - on the other it causes food import bill to rise. The government needs to work on prioritizing agriculture. As I said in one of my articles on my Blog, there are thousands who plan big and talk big but have achieved nothing. But there are precious few who deliver even on the most basic.

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    1. Ngawang PhuntshoJanuary 3, 2017 at 2:22 PM

      Thank you Aue Yeshey for visiting my blog and blessing me with a comment. Appreciate that a lot. And of course only people who come from that part of the land will understand the issue best. Thank you for always supporting the village-cause and doing a lot more through RTC. We admire your genuine help towards rural cause. And Happy New Year!!!

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