SIBU: Kapitan Datuk Janet Lau is looking to the 4th National Early Childhood Intervention Conference (NECIC) to motivate more people to take the leading role in providing services to the less fortunate.

The conference, she said, aims to convey the message that children with special needs could lead a normal life as any other children.

Lau is a co-chairman of the organising committee of the three-day conference which began yesterday at Kingwood Hotel.

There were about 60 speakers, she told reporters yesterday, adding that the event should motivate people to come forward to help the less fortunate.

“Soon after the previous conference in Sabah, we began to prepare for this conference. It has taken us about 18 months in preparation,” she said.

There had been many meetings and brainstorming sessions, she added. “We got pointers from the previous conferences on how to roll out such an event.

“But, we’ve injected many new ideas, and this conference does differ from the previous ones,” she said.

Lau said Sibu actually won the bid to host this year’s conference.

“We have the facilities. We have the Agape Centre, and we have the manpower,” she said, adding it was a privilege to host such an event.

Lau said Sibu people had been very helpful, which made the organisation of the event rather smooth.

On the public’s perception of children with special needs, she said generally, people had a better understanding of these children.

“More people are stepping forward to play their bit in helping these children and the less fortunate,” she said, attributing the development to the increasing number of educational programmes towards that end.