Since 2003, Citi-YMCA Youth For Causes has accumulatively raised more than $8 million for at least 160 charities.
Under the scheme, each team of four participants is given seed funding of S$1,600 and other resources to plan and implement a project that will benefit a charity of their choice.
Over the years, the scheme has grown tremendously. In 2005, organisers doubled the number of selected teams from 50 to 100. Participant numbers have also increased from the first year, when only 31 teams made a pitch, reflecting the growth of social entrepreneurship among young people in Singapore.
Latest figures from the Singapore Centre for Social Enterprise (raiSE), the national advocate for the social enterprise sector, show that as at March 2016, 112 of its social enterprise member organisations were founded by people aged below 35, up from 91 in March 2015.
A spokesman for raiSE said that the growth in youth social entrepreneurship could be due to more young people wanting to marry their interests of being employed and giving back to society.
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Source: The Straits Times, 11 May 2017