SIBU: Minister of Women, Childhood, and Community Wellbeing Development Sarawak, Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah assured the Sarawak government is committed to empowering children with disabilities through several initiatives.
She noted that an increase in the number of children with disabilities in Sarawak attending school was a positive development.
“In the past, these children were often kept at home, but now many of them are pursuing their education.
“This is the progress we want to see in Sarawak. We do not want these children to be kept at home. They must have education and they have the right to it,” she said.
Fatimah said this in her speech during her special visit to the Wishesland Sibu branch at Jalan Shariff Mansor here today (June 19).
She also stressed that every child with disabilities has their own talent and their (the child) parents, guardians, educators and charitable volunteers need to unearth their hidden abilities.
“If we look beyond their disabilities, they have hidden talent that we need to train so that it can be further expanded,” added Fatimah.
“It is very important for us to identify so that we can provide training for them so that they will have skills and in the future they can live independently,” she elaborated.
Fatimah who is also Dalat aseemblyman praised the efforts made by the state government in establishing care centres for person with disabilities such as the one-stop Special Needs Community Centre (SNCC) and the One-Stop Early Intervention Centre (OSEIC).
“These have been established by the government as our effort to provide early intervention for us to identify the specific disability that these children are diagnosed with,” she said.
