Straits Times 18 Nov 07
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.
Read the full report in Monday's edition of The Straits Times.
$1.8m for Ngee Ann Poly's social, green initiatives
3-year tie-up with Lien Foundation, which will provide most of the funds
Tessa Wong, Straits Times 19 Nov 07;
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.
And for the education in Asean initiative, the polytechnic will consult with a regional school for each year of the programme.
This year, NP has picked Sekayu Polytechnic in Sumatra, Indonesia, and will work with it to improve its curricula and teaching methods.
The education institutions for the next two years have not been identified yet.
This is not the first time NP has gained from the foundation's largesse:
Its Lien Ying Chow Education Initiative, which gives out 15 scholarships and over 200 bursaries to NP students each year, was started with $5 million from the foundation.
The foundation also provided $200,000 worth of personal digital assistants for nursing students and staff of the polytechnic's School of Health Services.
