Fatimah (left) at one of the booths at the convention.
SIBU (Aug 6): Sarawak’s Women, Childhood and Community Wellbeing Development ministry reaffirms its commitment in providing a support system for working and breastfeeding mothers by creating child care centres at the workplace.
Speaking at the opening of Sibu Breastfeeding Support Group Convention 2022 at Kingwood Hotel here today, its minister Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah said there are currently ten child care centres at the workplace in Sarawak.
“The ministry has always encouraged government departments and private sectors to create taska (child care centres) at the workplace, so that when it is time for mothers to breastfeed, they can always go to the taska.
“These taska and kindergartens are registered under the ministry, where safety of the children is the ministry’s main concern,” she said.
According to Fatimah, the Sarawak government has been providing special annual grants (GTK) to 581 child care centres and kindergartens registered under the Early Childhood Education Institutions since 2019.
Out of that, 478 are kindergarten with 23,667 children and 103 taska with 1,709 children, she added.
One of the purposes of the grant, she said, was to purchase a chiller or refrigerator to enable the operators to store the mothers’ expressed breast milk to be given to babies during feeding time.
She explained that her ministry had channelled about RM43.695 million to 8,739 registered kindergartens and child care centres.
“For 2022, as of July, we have received 2,798 applications for the grant,” she said, adding that as of now, there are 24 Baby Friendly Clinic (KRB) and 19 Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) in the state.
She expressed hope that the number would increase in order to give greater support to working mothers as well as to breastfeeding working mothers.
Also present at the event were the convention’s organising chairwoman Dayang Normaliza Awang Tambi and Sibu Hospital director Dr Nanthakumar Thirunavukkarasu.