Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat Seminar 

            Children play a very important role in the development of our nation. As we all know, each child is the key to our future generation. But why wait for us children to grow up then only have our say documented and put in to actions? Why not start now? Well Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat has taken one step forward and invited a group of teenagers aged between 14 to 16 years to join in one of their programs which initially was held with only the presence of adults every year .Thus, on the 19th till the 22nd of May 2003, the “Program Pekembangan Dan Pembangunan Kanak-kanak Negara 2003” was held for the first time with the presence of 20 children at The Empress Hotel,Sepang. 

            This 4 day workshop was held in one of the halls in the hotel. Representatives from different areas of the ministry (jabatan pembangunan manusia & pengajian, Pusat perkembangan kokurikulum,JKKM,Jabatan Pendidikan Swasta,KEMAS,Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara,Jabatn Pendidikan Khas, Jabatn Perubatan Pemulihan,JAKIM,Kementerian Tenaga Komunikasi Multimedia) were present to participate in the workshop. The objectives of the workshop is to solve and come up with a conclusion on the 6 most important issues in the year 2002.A budget of RM20,000 was given to each group by UNICEF to get their conclusions in to actions. This amount had to be used in the period of 3months.(Jun-Ogos) 

Everybody was broken up in to 6 groups. Each group had a specific topic to work on during the given period of time. The 6 topics were-   

  Pengasuhan dan Perkembangan Awal Kanak-Kanak
  Pendidikan Asas dan Literasi
  Kanak-Kanak Bermasalah
  Kanak-kanak Kurang Upaya
  Pendidikan Ibu Bapa dan fungsi Keluarga
  Kanak-kanak dan persekitaran

Each team was equipped with a computer and a printer for them to produce their solutions for presenting on the final day. 

            After 3 whole days of discussing and working, all groups presented their work to all 6 teams and received feedback. Some teams came up with websites, pamphlets, posters and guidelines. The children participants on the other hand had another task to do. We had to read through the CRC and come up with 10 most related rights(in the CRC) to children of Malaysia and make a poster of ways for children to be responsible in acting out the CRC. Once all the work was wrapped up and handed to the officials, we were taken back to JKKM’s headquarters at Wisma Shan and were allowed to go home.