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WCPC 2015

World’s Children’s Press Conference

Once a year, you and your friends can organise a World’s Children’s Press Conference. The idea behind these events is that only children should speak, and only children should be interviewed by journalists.

Every year, children all over the world hold hundreds of press conferences at the same time, at the end of the WCP Program, when children all over the world have voted to decide who will receive the awards for the rights of the child. 

How to do it:

1. Time and place

If possible choose the most important building in your area for your press conference, to show that the rights of the child are important! Or you could hold it at your school. 

2. Invite the media

Invite all newspapers, magazines and TV and radio stations, giving plenty of notice. Write the time and place clearly. You can use email, but make sure you also call the journalists you think may be interested in coming! Remind them the day before the press conference by telephone or by visiting them. 

3. Prepare

Write down what you plan to say. Give yourself plenty time to prepare what you want to say about the rights of the child in your country. Shortly before the press conference you will receive secret information from the World’s Children’s Prize, which should be revealed at the press conference.

4. Hold the press conference

If possible, begin with music and dancing, and explain that other children all over the world are holding press conferences at the same time. Then proceed with the press conference roughly as follows:

• State facts about the World’s Children’s Prize and if possible show a short WCP film clip.

• Explain how children’s rights are violated in your country. 

• State your demands – how you want politicians and other adults to improve respect for the rights of the child in your country.

• Reveal the ‘big news’ of the day, about the World’s Children’s Prize Child Rights Heroes. 

• End by giving the journalists a press release and the WCP factsheet on your country. The press release is a document that summarises information on the WCP, the rights of the child and the Child Rights Heroes! You can get a sample press release from the World’s Children’s Prize.

 

 

Press conference in media

 

When students at ETEC Paulina Botelho, Centro Paula Souza in São Carlos in Brazil held their World’s Children’s Press Conference, they had investigated child labour in Brazil and presented their findings. Lukas, 16, says:

“There is a lot of inequality in Brazil. Children often work in slave-like conditions here. While studying the World’s Children’s Prize Program we found children who work extremely hard in tough conditions on a farm outside São Carlos. The main issue we raised at our press conference was child labour in our city and our country.”