Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province, has been making tireless efforts to alleviate poverty in Qiandongnan Miao and Dong autonomous prefecture in Southwest China's Guizhou province as part of a national targeted alleviation program.

The task has not been easy for Hangzhou, as the prefecture is one of the poorest areas in Guizhou.

Since 2013, when Hangzhou was assigned to help the prefecture, the city has formulated an elaborate plan to help lift the area out of poverty.

In 2018, Hangzhou sent a task force to the prefecture to help with local efforts to fight poverty.

Hou Zhiying, a local resident in Qiandongnan Miao and Dong autonomous prefecture in Guizhou province, poses for a photo wearing a traditional Miao costume. [Photo/hangzhou.com.cn]

Over the past three years, Hangzhou has sent 1,145 officials and technical workers to the prefecture and spent 2.11 billion yuan ($308.77 million) to promote industrial growth, employment and social undertakings in the prefecture.

Since 2018, 13 counties, 1,436 villages, and more than 540,000 local residents in Qiandongnan have been lifted above the poverty line.

To express his gratitude to Hangzhou, Qianhu Miaozhai, a tourism site known for being home to China's largest Miao tribe, is free to Hangzhou residents, said Hou Zhiying, a student majoring in dance at Hunan Normal University.

During her summer holiday, Hou often worked as a dancer to greet tourists, a tradition of the Miao group.

Yang Chao, a teacher at a secondary vocational school in Taijiang county in Qiandongnan, poses for a photo with several intelligent robots donated by Hangzhou. [Photo/hangzhou.com.cn]

Yang Shaohong, aged 39, is among the local residents in Qiandongnan to benefit from Hangzhou's targeted poverty alleviation program. He took part in a training session on rearing silkworms in Jiande, a county-level city in Hangzhou, in 2018.

Yang founded a center to raise silkworms after he came back to his hometown. The job earns him more than 210,000 yuan in annual revenue.

Yang's silkworm-raising center offers jobs to 1,500 workers a year and is able to lift 35 local residents out of poverty annually.

Yang Chao, aged 27, is a teacher of electromechanical engineering at a secondary vocational school in Taijiang county in Qiandongnan.

He said that Hangzhou donated several intelligent industrial robots to their laboratory so that students can carry out experiments. According to Yang, students will not have to worry about getting a job after graduation once they have learned how to operate the robots, which are used by many factories.

"Our principal is also an official from Hangzhou. We are working together to improve education here," said Yang.