Ministry to work with DBKU in kids-friendly initiative, issues related to ageing society

The Women, Childhood and Community Wellbeing Development Ministry will work with Kuching North City Commission (DBKU) to implement Child Friendly Cities Initiative (CFCI) and address issues related to an ageing society.

According to Minister Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef) is one of the strategic partners for CFCI and a study will be conducted in collaboration with the higher learning institutions on the initiative this year.

“We want to make sure that Kuching is a child-friendly and age-friendly city, as we will be an ageing society by 2028. In this regard, the local councils play an important role,” she told reporters when met after leading a delegation to pay a courtesy visit on the newly-appointed Kuching North Datuk Bandar Hilmy Othman at the DBKU headquarters here yesterday.

Aside from DBKU, Fatimah pointed out that Kuching South City Council, Padawan Municipal Council, Sibu Municipal Council and Miri City Council had also been selected to be a part of the ‘Child-Friendly City’ project.

She also hoped that more childcare centres would be set up at workplace for the convenience of working parents.

“We will see how DBKU can help to provide a support system to working parents,” she said, adding more companies from the private sector should play their part in providing such service to their employees.

On age-friendly society, Fatimah said proper planning would be needed in terms of equipping public areas with facilities meant to accommodate the needs of an ageing society, such as the availability of public sitting areas.

On a separate matter, Fatimah commended the efforts by various non-governmental organisations in promoting early detection and prevention measures of cervical cancer.

She was commenting on a recent statement by federal Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri about Sarawak being the leader among the states in the country in terms of the number of women who underwent the human papillomavirus deoxyribonucleic acid (HPV DNA) tests between 2019 and 2023, at 23,744.