A NATIONAL 18-day drive to collect 201,000 pledges to support racial harmony and the Singapore Youth Olympic Games 2010 kicked off on Wednesday.

Organisations and individuals have promised to come on board with 90, 000 pledges so far.

This is part of this year's National Orange Ribbon Celebrations, held island-wide since last year to celebrate racial harmony.

At the launch of the month-long event on Wednesday at Evergreen Secondary School in Woodlands graced by the five mayors, onepeople.sg chairman andCentral CDC mayor Zainudin Nordin said the celebrations start with the youth as they would be future flag bearers of racial and religious harmony.

This year's theme Many Races, One Gracious Society promotes the olympic values of excellence, respect and friendship in conjunction with the SYOG 2010.

There would be 80 activities this month, including a main event - a carnival - on July 18 where physical pledges which are folded into paper starswill be unveiled as part of a structure. The public can do online pledging and view the content of existing pledges at http://orangeribbon.onepeople.sg/2009.