Your newspaper can help young people learn about the importance and fragility of press freedom with one simple activity with even one school class: The 3 May Poster Project.

All you need to do is persuade a teacher (probably upper primary, secondary or university) to spend as little as hour or so on 3 May as the class creates posters on the theme of "Silence kills democracy, but a free press talks." The poster can have words, but consider also encouraging posters that create the message with only visual elements.

The class then votes for the best ones, and you cover the activity and publish the class winners.

The class (or you) can also send us the best posters for our worldwide gallery and for possible use in a combination poster to be chosen by a group of press freedom heroes and distributed to the world's leading newspaper publishers.

You can, of course, expand this to more than one school!

More details about the project and background about press freedom are at www.worldpressfreedomday.org, which also includes a link to an excellent film (good for secondary school students and older) about the high personal price for journalists around the world of reporting the important stories people read and hear

You can find a downloadable instruction sheet at the bottom of the page.

For more about how to develop young readership:

http://www.wan-ifra.org/microsites/young-readers