About Us
What makes great city planning? We believe that core considerations should revolve around accessibility, inclusivity, and sustainability. Moving around should be relatively easy with an efficient transportation system. City and infrastructure designs should incorporate the needs of marginalized groups such as Persons-with-Disabilities (PwD) and aging communities. Green spaces, eco-friendly practices and technologies should be integrated into developmental planning. Therefore, KotaKita Sabah has been established to be an agent of change that focuses on advocating city-regional planning, for the people, by the people.
How we started
KotaKita was founded in March 2021 by aspiring urbanist, Rashidah Kamaluddin. Seeing the need for a more inclusive and resilient city planning in her hometown, she gathered 15 other young individuals who share the same aspirations for Sabah and have since been advocating for community-led city planning up until this day.
The team kick-started their efforts through the FELO Parliament programme; a capacity-building virtual programme whereby only 35 fellows were selected nationwide to conduct their own advocacy projects. Rashidah, who was selected
as one of the fellows, saw this as an opportunity to shed some light onto the urban planning issues faced in the Sabahan context, as it is rarely discussed and lacks the necessary resources.
To start off their advocacy, KotaKita decided to focus on the concept of walkability in Kota Kinabalu city – with the belief that walkability has the potential to be the first step towards building a more liveable, inclusive and
resilient city. On June 27 2021, KotaKita launched its first virtual public awareness campaign ‘WalKK 1.0’ to create awareness on the importance and benefits of good walkability in cities. The campaign was well received and was proven
to be quite a success as KotaKita emerged as one of the top 3 winners by the end of the FELO Parliament programme.
Now
Today, KotaKita is continuing their efforts to strive for better city planning for Sabah and its people through collaboration with stakeholders, participating in forums / discussions surrounding urban planning discourse, conducting on-ground research and collecting data. Upholding their vision; ‘Advocating for city-regional planning, for the people, by the people’, KotaKita aims to empower the citizens, and show them that they too can play their part in forming better and more livable places to live in.
Meet the team!
