BRIEFING: Fatimah (second left) taking to the media after she closed the 6th Cultural Symposium 2013 yesterday. With her from left are Ose, Robert and Rodziah.
KUCHING: A total of 51 working papers were presented and 112 resolutions adopted at the 6th Cultural Symposium 2013 here yesterday.
Welfare, Women and Family Development Minister Datuk Fatimah Abdullah said her ministry was given the task to coordinate the symposium and to set up a committee from various ministries and main ethnic communities to follow up on the resolutions.
“The ministry will put forward the resolutions to various relevant agencies to handle. For example, land matters to Land and Survey, and we hope in the next symposium the issues that have been forwarded during each symposium will be picked up and implemented. That is very important,” she said at a press conference after the closing of the symposium at a leading hotel here yesterday.
“The underlying objective of the symposium is to ensure that the diversity of culture in Sarawak is maintained and although there is diversity we have to maintain the unity,” she added.
On the symposium, she said it was to ensure that each ethnic group preserve their culture on food, apparel, dance and customs.
“What we pressed in this 6th symposium is another level and the way of thinking of each ethnic community. We want to move forward as a developed nation and we must know how each ethnic community thinks,” she stressed.
She said as we move towards our goal to be a developed nation by 2020, we must not lose sight of the prevailing peace and harmony in the country as well as the diversity of our culture.
She also revealed that her ministry would hand over the resolutions from the symposiums to the Chief Minister on November 26.
“There was a suggestion that we come up with a book and hand it over to the state museum for records and archives and this includes all the papers presented by various speakers during the symposiums,” she added, explaining that it could be used for future generations as reference material.
The 6th Cultural symposium 2103 was attended by 2,129 participants from various ethnic communities, and was held at various dates starting from July 6 this year.
The most common issue raised at the 6th symposium was land matters.
Most of the resolutions from the 5th Cultural Symposium have been implemented and some are still being considered.
Among the people present at the press conference were Assistant Minister of Welfare Robert Lawson Chuat, deputy state secretary Datu Ose Murang and permanent secretary to the Ministry of Welfare, Women and Family Development Rodziah Morshidi.