KUCHING: By October this year, six Community Sewing Skills Development Centres (CSSDC) also known as ‘Pusat Pembangunan Kemahiran Jahitan Komuniti’ located throughout the state will start operating, said Minister of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Datuk Fatimah Abdullah.
She said that the six centres are located at Limbang, Bintulu, Sarikei, Sibu, Serian and Dalat.
“We have identified the premises that we want to rent for these centres, and now we are waiting for the approval from the State Financial Secretary on renting,” she said during the Women and Family Department Sarawak Majlis Ramah Tamah Aidilfitri and ‘Ngiling Tikai’ ceremony at Wisma Waninta here yesterday.
She also said that next it will be the tender process for procurement of sewing machines because there are a lot of machines that could not be used anymore.
“Therefore, we need to have the new one machines, while the other part is on trainers that we have work on it where they have been given the training.
“Now the trainers are in better grade from contract daily paid workers to JBC (Jawatan Berasaskan Caruman / Contribution-based Position) grade,” Fatimah pointed out.
Fatimah said that now the trainers are qualified trainers that can train the training participants in order to obtain Malaysian Skill Certificate (SKM) if passed.
“Before this, we only provided attendance certificate for the trainers, but now the difference is they will get SKM after completing their training that could start this coming October,” she added.
Fatimah said the training is free of charge as its fund comes from the government.
“The government has agreed that we still need to have this particular training centres in our community especially to give the opportunity to train housewives, single mothers or even the young ones who have finished schooling but could not leave their village community and therefore there is no need the them to come to the city for training,” she explained.
Fatimah said the number of participants that will join the training will be based on the response from the community.
“Some places will have more, some places will have 20 participants and that is good enough,” she said.
