ATHENS – The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) is supporting programs that benefit young people in a variety of ways and throughout the world. Making water safety a part of the curriculum in Greece is just one of the SNF-supported programs as is Apps for Good, a project of Portugal’s Center of Digital Inclusion.

Every year in Greece, 325 people lose their lives at sea. Drowning is the second leading cause of death by accident for children from infancy to the age of 14. Since its inception in 2015, the nonprofit organization Safe Water Sports has been trying to reverse the patterns that produce these sad statistics by making people safer in and near the water.

For the past five years, the organization has rolled out a series of initiatives, including educational sea safety programs for the elderly, smartphone applications offering safety training, and an integrated information system for port authorities to manage water sports licenses.

Some of the most important activities Safe Water Sports runs are its interactive workshops for children, held in classrooms and beyond. Starting this year, thanks to the great work, passion, and dedication of the people behind the organization, the workshops developed by Safe Water Sports will be included as a mandatory part of the curriculum in primary schools in Greece.

SNF has supported the creation and implementation of these programs since they began four years ago.

Students Design Apps to Help Solve Society’s Problems, from Pet Waste to Beach Crowding

Eliminating plastic waste? There’s an app for that. Apps for Good, a project of Portugal’s Center of Digital Inclusion supported by SNF, asks secondary-school students to create apps to address real social problems in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

At the program’s final event last week, the students pitched their creations to a panel of expert judges.

The winners included apps to help save water and energy by regulating shower length, determine whether a beach is too crowded to visit, and reduce the prevalence of dog waste in public spaces. The SNF award was given to an app that gives users tips on decreasing the amount of plastic waste they generate in their daily lives.

More information is available online: https://www.snf.org/en/.