Qiaojin Shuangmei (1st L, front) attends the opening meeting of the first session of the 13th NPC at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 5, 2018. Qiaojin Shuangmei, a deputy to China's 13th National People's Congress (NPC), comes from Yi Autonomous County of Mabian in southwest China's Sichuan Province. Famed for her outstanding needlework at the age of 18, Qiaojin Shuangmei has devoted most of her time to protect and pass on the embroidery of ethnic minority group Yi, which is a national intangible cultural heritage. Her biggest dream is to help Yi women get rid of poverty with exquisite traditional embroidery. In 2015, she created the first embroidery cooperative in Mabian with other four women who together led local women to make hand-embroidered craftworks and clothes. So far, the cooperative has succeeded in recruiting 168 embroiderers, each of whom can annually earn more than 8,000 yuan (about 1,261 US dollars) with their craftswomanship. While running the cooperative, Qiaojin is also engaging in Yi embroidery lessons at local elementary schools. As a newly-elected deputy to China's top legislature National People's Congress, Qiaojin came to this year's NPC with a proposal to promote Yi embroidery and focus on the training of excellent embroiderers in the hope of better preservation and development of the inheritance. (Xinhua/Wang Jianhua)
