Capacity Building for Rural Women to Revive the Countryside

Empowering the present, sustaining the future

In recent years, an increasing number of rural women have chosen to return to their hometowns to care for their children. While taking on family responsibilities, they are also eager to have renewed opportunities to achieve economic independence and increase family income.

The " Capacity Building Programme for Left-behind Women" funded by HSBC China has been dedicated to helping rural women develop work skills to start their own business ventures.

After working away from home for seven years, 27-year-old Fu Caiyun returned to her hometown of Shaoguan City, Guangdong Province, in 2018 where she married her husband, owner of a handmade noodle mill. She planned to stay in her hometown to take care of her family after giving birth to her baby. At the same time, Fu began to think about how to make the family's noodle business bigger and better. Inspired by the urban trend of green food that has emerged in recent years, she decided to focus on the development of nutritious noodles made with fruits and vegetables.

However, that was just a rough idea. Fu had no clue about how to get things started. But in order to make a difference for the family business as soon as possible, she did not miss any opportunity to learn. She attended the training by Rural Women Development Foundation Guangdong even when she was still breastfeeding. With the help of expertise and technology, Fu became more confident. She began to use organic vegetables and fruits grown by her relatives and friends to make various kinds of nutritious noodles. And the sales surged.

The story didn’t end there. The training also brought Fu’s attention to the importance of packaging and branding. She then hired a professional designer to design the product packaging, and also registered an official trademark for her products. Now, she is setting her sights on e-commerce. "Two years ago, with zero experience, I opened a store on WeChat. Now I’m considering selling my products on Taobao and Suning as well. Guangdong is where we started. We hope gradually our products can become popular elsewhere too." said Fu.

Since 2019, HSBC China has been working with its charity partners to support rural women's entrepreneurship. In addition to empowering rural women, the bank also supports China’s rural economy by funding projects such as those for poverty alleviation through promoting eco-businesses and rural youth entrepreneurship.