During a ceremony at the 5th World Young Reader Conference in Helsinki, Finland, WAN also awarded special commendations to O Dia of Brazil and to Independent Newspapers in New Zealand for their projects aimed at developing young readership.

WAN honoured the Daytona Beach News-Journal in Florida for "Families and the News", a 9-month programme in which newspapers were delivered daily to the homes of students from 24 lower income elementary schools. NIE grant funds paid for the deliveries, which went to students of 149 teachers who participated in the programme.

The newspaper provided curriculum support to teachers and families engaged in the project. In addition to an activities handbook distributed by the Florida state NIE organization, teachers received a 60-page guide produced by the News-Journal for using newspapers in the classroom. Parents were encouraged to participate through the distribution of parent handbooks, monthly activity calendars and special supplements of the paper.

"We think the programme had a lot of benefits. First and foremost, we think the families benefited," said Kristin Sternberg, NIE Home Delivery Manager at the newspaper, who received the award. "We think it reached younger readers who began to develop a habit of reading newspapers regularly."

The special commendations were given to Independent Newspapers for unifying the NIE programmes of 10 newspapers, and to O Dia for publishing letters it had encouraged students to write to President Luiz Lula da Silva, that described their lives and problems and offered some possible solutions.

A description of the winning project can be found by clicking here.

More than 300 newspaper executives and young reader experts from 40 countries attended the WAN Young Reader Conference from 7 to 10 September. Summaries of presentations and other conference news can be found at.

WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 72 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 100 countries, 13 news agencies and nine regional and world-wide press groups.

Inquiries to: Larry Kilman, Director of Communications, WAN, 25 rue d’Astorg, 75008 Paris France. Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00. Fax: +33 1 47 42 49 48. Mobile: +33 6 10 28 97 36. E-mail: lkilman@wan.asso.fr.