Becoming a journalist has always been my childhood dream. In the year 2000, I enrolled in the program of Radio & Television Journalism at Xinjiang University. Upon graduation, I started my career by getting a job at Xinjiang Radio & Television Station.

During my time as a journalist in Kashi City and Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, I have visited all 16 counties and cities in the two regions, including all the townships and pastoral areas along the borders.

During this time, I have witnessed China's development first hand. More than 7 billion RMB was invested in renovating dilapidated buildings in Kashi's old town, an enormous project that covered an area of eight square kilometers and involved more than 200,000 people. UNESCO acclaimed the Kashi Old Town Project as a global model for the preservation and renovation of ancient urban areas. Today, Kashi's old town is a well-known tourist destination, benefiting local people of all ethnic groups.

I have also witnessed the transformation of the lives of tens of thousands of herders from my hometown of Kizilsu. They left the mountains where they used to live and settled down in newly developed areas, where they grew vegetables in greenhouses, opened clothing stores, or worked in factories. They live in modern buildings equipped with natural gas, running water, and sewerage systems, and have bedrooms and studies for their children.

It is not just the transformations in my hometown that make me happy but also the changes I see in myself. The year 2023 was the 18th year of my professional career. The period of more than twenty years since beginning university has witnessed my development from a young girl to a mature journalist. Thanks to my career, I have traveled around Xinjiang and to a host of other places in China, a fruitful experience that has not only brought me many friends but also given me a fantastic panorama of China. Nourished by the richness of my career and its open, tolerant, and warm working environment, I have grown into a confident and optimistic intellectual.

Like me, an increasing number of women in Xinjiang's rural areas have found their way to their own careers, thus realizing their own dreams in the context of the growing stability, harmony, openness, and inclusiveness of Xinjiang.

Take, for example, 34-year-old Nouriman Guri. In 2022, Kant Aizhik Village, in Yengisar County of Kashi, purchased three tractors and a crop-protection drone, planning to rent them out to the villagers. The tractors were quickly rented out, but the drone attracted little interest. Just as they were about to return it, Nouriman Guricame along and leased the drone for an annual cost of 66,000 RMB.

Using her own farmland for practice, she trained hard under the guidance of an expert drone operator. After six days, she passed the exam and became the first licensed female crop-protection drone operator in the village. She then encouraged many other women in the village to join her entrepreneurial team as drone operators to protect tens of thousands of acres of farmland. All these women have become "modern farmers" with a good command of new technology.

At the beginning of 2023, on an investigative trip to Qianjin Village, Nai Zerbagh Town, Kashi, a 95-square-meter beauty salon at the village entrance caught my eye. Run by 36-year-old Bayisham, now a famous hairdresser, this salon was the product of a 2018 "Hairdressing Salon Project" launched by the Women's Federation of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Women's Federation is a social organization formed by women from all walks of life to protect and safeguard their rights and interests, with multi-level organizations in all provinces, cities and autonomous regions in China.) The village committee encouraged Bayisham to attend the training courses provided by the project, where she first acquired hairdressing techniques free of charge. She was then offered hairdressing equipment worth 15,000 RMB.

Half a year later, she opened a small salon of just 15 square meters, the first one of its kind in Qianjin Village, attracting a great many customers. Now, Bayisham's salon has developed into a business with multiple services ranging from beauty treatments and hairdressing to wedding dress rentals. The salon has grown to 95 square meters with a monthly net income exceeding 5,000 RMB.

Bayisham often tells the women in her village that looking pretty is not just a privilege of city women but can also be part of the daily life of rural women. Seeing Bayisham as a role model, more and more women are taking the initiative to learn occupational skills and find jobs. For the past three years, she has recruited a total of 15 women from neighboring villages as apprentices, eight of whom later started their own businesses in the villages around Kashi.

Although safeguarding women's equal employment rights and eliminating gender discrimination in employment has to overcome many obstacles, in today's Xinjiang, more and more women now have the freedom to choose their own careers and change their destinies with their own hands. This marks one of the greatest achievements in the development of China's human rights.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of DeepChina.

The author is Maria Fulati, journalist for Xinjiang Radio & Television News Center