A TEAM of Singapore youth will be in Sweden next year to present their water-related project in an international competition, thanks to a collaboration between the Lien Foundation (LF) and Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP).

A three-year $1.79 million programme, funded mainly by the foundation to advance social and environmental causes, will support three initiatives:

The Singapore Junior Water Prize, the winners of which will represent Singapore in Stockholm, Sweden;

Student projects in support of the public education drive on terminal illnesses and hospices; and

Providing consultancy to three Asean educational institutions.
Called the LF-NP Social, Environmental and Educational Development (Seed) Capital, the programme is aimed at enhancing NP students' learning experience and developing the three areas, said the polytechnic's principal, Mr Chia Mia Chiang.

NP will organise the competition for the first national Singapore Junior Water Prize, to be open to all Singapore schools.

The team with the winning project - and this can range from designing a filtration system to a public education project on water as a resource to cleaning up a river - will represent Singapore at the Stockholm Junior Water Prize competition next August.

The Public Utilities Board put $40,000 into this portion of the LF-NP Seed Capital programme.

For the public education drive on terminal illnesses, NP students will produce radio programmes and write articles on the subject in the first year of the programme.

Topics for the next two years are yet to be decided.