KUCHING: The Sarawak Welfare Department would continue to provide opportunities to empower recipients of monthly aid to be self-reliant.
Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah said this in promoting the Sarawak Wellbest Carnival, which will be held from Nov 28 to Dec 1.
Speaking to the media in Metrocity Matang, she said the event would serve as a platform for welfare entrepreneurs to experience new consumer acquisition.
“The carnival is a place where all welfare entrepreneurs throughout Sarawak will be able to gather and market their products.
“And this will help them to learn more in improving the marketability of their products in domestic and global market,” she explained.
Fatimah also stressed that creating opportunities for welfare entrepreneurs was necessary in order to motivate them to elevate their monthly income.
“By emphasising productive welfare, we are focusing more on motivating the recipients of welfare aid to gain and develop entrepreneurship skills.
“We want participants to generate a monthly income higher than the poverty line,” she said.
She revealed that a total of 150 welfare entrepreneurs had been selected as participants of the carnival.
“We hope that each of them will be able to hit their total sale over RM1,000 during the four-day carnival.”
However, organising such event, said Fatimah, did not guarantee an outlet from poverty.
As such, she pointed out the role of industry key players in ensuring that these welfare entrepreneurs were capable to move from financial inertia.
“We recognise that we need to add value in helping them move out of poverty.
“Therefore, we need to help their children by giving them opportunities to learn and develop relevant skills,” she said, adding that there would be a memorandum of understanding ceremony between Centex and MIDA during the carnival.
As of Sept this year, a total of 53,837 welfare recipients have received financial aid from the state government.
However, despite the huge number of Sarawakians receiving welfare aid, it was learnt that from Jan to Sept 2019, only 987 welfare productive recipients had been selected to participate in Welfare Micro-Business development programmes.
In fact, last year, only 133 welfare entrepreneurs had discontinued receiving monthly aid.
As of Sept this year, 163 welfare entrepreneurs had managed to generate RM1,000 per month and had discontinued receiving monthly aid.
Raising her concern on the imbalance between the number of welfare recipients and productive welfare recipients, Fatimah called on industries to create more opportunities.
“In order to motivate them to be more independent in generating their own income rather than merely relying on government aid, we hope everyone realises that welfare is a shared responsibility,” she added.
