Ministry to help the elderly live better - Wan Azizah
INTERVIEW | The Women, Family and Community Development Ministry is working on improving the quality of life for senior citizens, says its minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.
This will be done through organising activities and programmes targeted at the group, as well as by introducing specialised facilities – beginning with Taiping.
"We will soon have an ageing society,..
INTERVIEW | The Women, Family and Community Development Ministry is working on improving the quality of life for senior citizens, says its minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.
This will be done through organising activities and programmes targeted at the group, as well as by introducing specialised facilities – beginning with Taiping.
"We will soon have an ageing society, and that’s why we need to organise programmes for the elderly.
"Today, we often see people neglecting their parents once they grow old. The kids are busy working, and there is no one at home," she said in a recent interview to mark Pakatan Harapan’s first year in government.
"These elderly people used to have positions (in workplaces and society), but now they just sit at home. I have visited several homes and found some of them to be depressed and lonely.
“We need to learn from countries like Japan where many elderly people die alone. The ministry is working to address the issue so such things don’t happen here."
Wan Azizah added her ministry will "tailor-make" programmes for the elderly based on their interests.
"If a pakcik wants to go to the mosque, we won’t ask him to go for Zumba classes," she quipped.
Another initiative was to turn Taiping into an elderly-friendly city, an initiative being undertaken in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
"Taiping was chosen because its demography shows many elderly people living there.
"We are building age-friendly facilities and conducting some studies there, which are being funded by the UNDP."
Cybersecurity push
Commenting on how her ministry wanted to take care of Malaysians "from the cradle to the grave," Wan Azizah noted how it introduced a child sex offenders registry, and allocated RM45 million in allowances for homemakers through the i-Suri programme.
The ministry also tried its best to convince individual states to change their laws to ban child marriages, and even met with the Conference of Rulers on the issue.
However, she maintained that Putrajaya was restricted by the fact that amendments to state religious laws remain under the jurisdiction of state governments and the rulers.
Moving forward, Wan Azizah said she wanted to focus on providing parenting programmes for young families, and introducing phase two of i-Suri.
As for her role as chair of the National Security Council, she said the body was now engaging with countries like Russia, Japan and Australia to improve cybersecurity in the country.
In line with this, the role of the National Cybersecurity Agency will be enhanced with a national Cyber Security Strategy now in the works, she added.
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