SHINE Youth Festival to ignite youth social movement

The annual SHINE Youth Festival will focus on getting youths to give back to the community this year.

The National Youth Council (NYC), which is the organiser of this year’s SHINE Youth Festival, said it hopes the festival will ignite Singapore’s youth social movement.

The theme for this year’s Shine Youth Festival is ‘Aspirations’ and the focus is on getting these youths to vocalise their aspirations for the community through two new initiatives.

One of the initiatives is Pitch to Shine, which has disbursed about S$180,000 to 16 projects that will make a difference to the community.

Another is Pledge to Shine, an online portal where youths can pen their aspirations for the community and act on them.

Martin Tan, chairman of SHINE Youth Festival Steering Committee, said: “NYC’s role is really to support and galvanise this group. For the ‘Pitch to Shine’ fund, we chose 16 awardees. They have great ideas and all they needed is a little bit of help to get it started, and that’s where NYC came in to help get the project off the ground. We hope to see more and more of these initiatives.”

The youths will be involved at every stage of the festival, from the conception of ideas to the performances and events.

From performances by an inter-school show choir to an arts exhibition, the SHINE Youth Festival promises a mix of entertainment with compassion.

The Singapore Inter-School Show Choir Challenge aims to integrate and showcase various disciplines of performing arts among the youth, and nurture them into creative young talents. It was initiated by the John & Deniece Glee Studios.

The art exhibition on display will feature the works of the ‘Dreamcatchers’ – a group of young patients with chronic diseases.

The SHINE Youth Festival, now into its eighth year, hopes to reach out to about 250,000 youths.

It will run from June 30 to July 29.

This article was first published in CNA