KUCHING: Kuching North City Hall (DBKU) and United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) will continue to work together in transforming north Kuching into a “child-friendly city”.
Sarawak Deputy Minister for Utility and Telecommunication, Datuk Dr Abdul Rahman Junaidi said the preparation for the best action plan would include clear objectives, impact, indicators, benchmarks, budgets, timeline along with the criteria required to obtain the recognition as a “Child-Friendly City” by UNICEF.
“A “child-friendly city” is a city, town, community or any system of local governance committed to fulfilling child rights as articulated in the Convention on the Rights of the child.
“It is a city or community where the voices, needs and priorities of children are an integral part of public policies, programmes and decisions influencing their lives and future.
“For instance, the concept of child-friendly cities includes child- friendly school, child-friendly hospital, child-friendly communities, child-friendly budget and child-friendly toilets.”
He said this at a press conference after the signing of a memorandum of understanding between DBKU and UNICEF on UNICEF’s Child Friendly City Initiative (CFCI) on Thursday (Feb 2).
On the implementation timeline, Abdul Rahman stated that the discussion had begun among staff of DBKU, including mayor Datuk Junaidi Reduan.
“Especially when it comes to the preparation of the facilities for the children around the cities, and it is in the pipeline.
“I believe this will be the short-term plan that we can implement at the moment,” he said.
In the meantime, deputy representative of UNICEF Programme, Sanja Saranovic applauded Sarawak authorities for demonstrating the maturity in respecting and protecting children’s rights.
“We would like, not only to support north Kuching city to have CFCI in Sarawak, but also to promote Sarawak to the international stage.
“We want to showcase Sarawak as a great example of protecting and promoting children’s rights,” she said.
Also present were permanent secretary of Ministry for Women, Early Childhood and Community Wellbeing, Noriah Ahmad and other guests.
