The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and ANJ, the Brazilian newspaper association, made joint regional award to a Brazilian school in the first World School Newspaper Prize for Press Freedom for excellent use of WAN-IFRA materials for 3 May Press Freedom Day as both content and inspiration for student's own content in a specially-themed school newspaper.

The winning school was Escola Municipal Prefeito Dr. Fulton Vitel B. de Macedo in Ponta Grossa, state of Paraná, Brazil. The school was nominated by the Newspapers in Education department of Jornal da Manhã.

"We see this work as an excellent model for next year's global prize," said Aralynn McMane, WAN-IFRA executive director of young readership development. "Specifically, the students did a great job of both using our 3 May material as a basis for their own creativity in producing their own cartoons and using relevant materials from our previous 3 May campaigns."

WAN-IFRA made a 1000-Euro donation to the school, with ANJ inviting the winning newspaper advisor, Lourdes do Rocio Stafin dos Santos (pictured at right) to receive the award from WAN-IFRA President Gavin O'Reilly on 19 August, during the annual national conference of ANJ, in Rio de Janiero.

The prize is supported by Norske Skog, the Norway-based paper producer, as part of its partnerhship in WAN-IFRA's Newspapers in Education Development Project. The company's worldwide network of paper producing plants include a facility in Jaguariaíva, Brazil.