KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah government is to establish\u00a0a temporary protection centre for street kids\u00a0with a pilot project to take off at the end of the year, said the Sabah Legislative Assembly was told today.
\nDatuk Abidin Madingkir, the assistant minister to the Chief Minister, said the pilot project will be implemented in\u00a0Kota Kinabalu. An\u00a0unused government building will be renovated at a cost of RM250,000 to fit the concept of a temporary shelter.
\n“This temporary shelter will come under the supervision of the state government through the State Home Affairs and Research Office, as well as the Welfare Services Department\u00a0and is assisted by local authorities (PBT).
\n“These street kids will be sent to the temporary shelter for rehabilitation for a maximum of three months,” he said in response to a question from Datuk Ewon Benedick (UPKO-Kadamaian) during the state assembly meeting here today.
\nHe said the centre will provide among others basic living skills training and informal religious teaching.\u00a0
\nAbidin said after three months, these children will be returned to their respective parents or guardians, who would then be issued\u00a0a warning to make sure their children would get involved in similar situations again.
\nHe said the presence of children wandering around and begging on the roads and at traffic lights junctions, especially in Kota Kinabalu as well as major cities such as Tawau, Sandakan and Lahad Datu, had created public annoyance.
\nHe said this also created a negative image for the state, especially giving a wrong perception of the state’s development efforts.
\nAccording to him, most of the beggars are from the Palauh tribe, which is an undocumented community that traditionally lives in coastal areas and islands on Sabah’s east coast.
\nIn answer to a supplementary question from Phoong Jin Zhe (DAP-Luyang), Abidin said the shelter would only target\u00a0street kids as there is no department or agency that has the authority to solve the problem of children roaming the streets, including arresting and imprisoning them.
\n“For example, the Kota Kinabalu City Hall (DBKK) can only round up beggars, including street kids, but they (beggars\/street kids) will only run away again. But the government hopes for the cooperation of all parties, including the community, in combating these activities,” he added.
\n— BERNAMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah government is to establish\u00a0a temporary protection centre for street kids\u00a0with a pilot project to take off at the end of the year, said the Sabah Legislative Assembly was told today. Datuk Abidin Madingkir, the assistant minister to the Chief Minister, said the pilot project will be implemented in\u00a0Kota Kinabalu. An\u00a0unused government […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":17107,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17106","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local-news"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17108,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17106\/revisions\/17108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}