Student Sophia Joe, 18, performs covers of popular songs and uploads them on online platforms, but it has long been one of her goals to write and release her own songs.

Yesterday, the music student at the LaSalle College for the Arts went beyond that when she performed her original composition, Love Me, at the National Youth Council's annual Shine festival, alongside local acts like singer-songwriter Linying and rapper Shigga Shay.

The festival in Orchard Road also featured displays by extreme sports athletes and dancers, some of whom were mentored under the Shine X *Scape Talent Development Programme, which was launched in 2015 and pairs aspiring performers with mentors to create works specially for the festival.

This year, over 1,000 youths were involved in the scheme, which started on 15 May and culminated in yesterday's showcase, up from last year's 700 participants.

The festival, which also featured e-gamers, makers and creators for the first time, kicked off Youth Month, which will see programmes and promotions for youth throughout July such as a photojournalism exhibition by Youth Corps Singapore and the third National Youth Film Awards on July 22.

Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu, who launched the Shine festival yesterday evening, said the creativity of young people can help Singapore "push the boundaries", and urged them to dare to dream.

The Singapore Red Cross yesterday inked a two-year memorandum of understanding with Republic Polytechnic (RP) to provide young people with more opportunities to engage in humanitarian action. This was announced at the the Red Cross' first Singapore Humanitarian Youth Summit.

The collaboration covers overseas humanitarian projects, curriculum development, student internship and social enterprise initiatives, and will mainly benefit two programmes at the polytechnic - the Diploma in Mass Communication and the Diploma in Social Enterprise Management courses.

Yuen Sin