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Rashidah Kamaluddin

With her architectural and urban planning background, coupled with her experiences in community engagement, Rashidah Kamaluddin, founder of KotaKita Sabah, champions community-driven urban planning and design in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. KotaKita Sabah is a non-governmental organisation dedicated to advocating for inclusive city-regional planning and design while shedding light on the unique elements of Sabah.

The idea of forming such movement emerged from Rashidah’s poignant observations during the pandemic, where the lack of essential infrastructure and connectivity exacerbated healthcare delivery, assistance, and services in the cities and rural regions of Sabah. She issued an open call to her fellow Sabahans, rallying them to mobilise a movement that encourages public participation in shaping the development of their own cities and neighbourhoods. Through initiatives like WalKK, Rashidah and her team promote citizen involvement in creating resilient, walkable cities, focusing on the needs of vulnerable groups like single parents, the elderly, children, and people with disabilities. This movement is now led by youths from various backgrounds and is supported by networks on local, national and international level with the shared aspirations to make cities in Malaysia, particularly Sabah, more inclusive for all.

Believing that cities should be shaped collectively with the community in order to bridge divides, Rashidah encourages a safe space for creativity and active participation in urban life.

Making an impact can be both internally within the organisation and externally outside of the organisation itself – this can be in the form of capacity and confidence-building for the team members of the organisation, of which they become the ambassadors of the impact-making movement, while externally are when the community are made aware of the challenges and how they may address it. I believe an impact can only be made collectively and collaboratively, with the humility to learn and unlearn.

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